


Wisteria

by harmonichearts



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bellarke, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Canon, Season 2, Season 3, Smut, Some Fluff, a few smutty bits, alternate versions of canon scenes/canon situations, because canon needs a little more fluff here and there, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9588038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harmonichearts/pseuds/harmonichearts
Summary: They lead together.---Or, Bellarke as an established relationship in a canon/alternate canon starting in season 2 and going onward...





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo! 
> 
> Basically, this is set as alternate canon, but still kinda close to actual canon in some instances, starting in season 2 and going through season 3, and probably also season 4, because why not? 
> 
> This is Bellarke as an established relationship, because I want to explore the way them being together through basically everything could affect certain cannonical situations. So, we'll go with the idea that there wasn’t as much hostility between them in the beginning of the dropship coming down and they were kind of always into each other because they figured out early on they worked better/lead better together. So Clarke never got with Finn, and Bellamy never really had a harem, and they established a romantic relationship as of Day Trip…
> 
> I hope this makes as much sense to you as it does to me... :)
> 
> This is self-edited, so I own nothing by my mistakes.

They lead together. 

They figured it out early on that together was better.The delinquents listened better to both of them; respected them more when they agreed on things.Clarke’s pretty sure it’s psychological; they just see a man and woman giving them orders and they immediately think mom and dad.She’s also pretty sure she’s even heard Jasper call them mom and dad when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

They realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t just leading that was better together.Everything was.Living together, sleeping together, _being_ together. 

When she comes to in the sterile white room and finds out that she’s being held prisoner in Mount Weather, she discovers they’re no longer together, and she can’t decide if she’s relieved that he’s not in this living hell with her, or devastated because he’s dead and it’s her fault.

All she remembers is Bellamy trying to fight off Tristan while yelling at Miller to get her into the dropship.She remembers waiting as long as she possibly could and then having to close the door, having to pull the lever, having to save the rest of her people.She shut out the person on the ground that she loves most, obliterated him, and Finn, and God knows who else along with all those grounder soldiers. 

Devastation wins out, because at least if he was in the mountain with her they could figure out how to escape.Together.

Instead, she’s forced to plan it on her own.When she makes it out of solitary confinement and reunites with the other 47 delinquents that were taken, she finds that Jasper is so blinded by the food and the safety and a girl named Maya that he’s virtually no help.Miller and Monty are skeptical about leaving as well.

“We’re finally not being hunted by anyone, Clarke,” Miller says.“No war to fight, no grounders to be afraid of.These people actually want to help us.Shouldn’t we be considering that a win?”

Clarke takes a deep breath and tries to stay calm.“That’s because we’ve already _been_ captured.And no, we shouldn’t considerer this a win.The rest of our people are out there; I know what I saw before the smoke bombs knocked all of us out.The ark was coming down.There are probably survivors, people who need our help, who aren’t going to know how to survive down here.What if grounders get to them first?What if-”

“Okay, okay,” Monty says.“A lot has happened since we landed and maybe you just need to take a breath for a second.I mean, you’ve been leading all of us and that’s gotta be stressful, running medical, trying to negotiate with grounders, _fighting_ grounders, not to mention losing Bell-”

“Don’t.”Her voice is low, cutting.“I don’t want to talk about Bellamy right now.”

“Maybe you should,” Miller says.“Clarke, you’re not the only one who cared about him.And talking about it-”

“Miller,” she interrupts.“I can’t talk about him right now, because then I won’t be able to talk or think about anything else, and despite what you two, and Jasper, and the rest of them might think, we _have_ to get out here, and it’s my job to make sure we do.All of this feels wrong.These people, this place…”She shakes her head and sighs, her disbelief at their situation evident.

Monty puts a hand on her shoulder.“Okay,” he says.“If you feel that strongly, we’ll figure it out.We’ve never had a reason not to trust you before.”

She goes to sleep that night in a small bunk bed in barracks that feel cold and lonely.She knows she can’t stay locked in this mountain much longer, so she deems to start exploring more in the morning, searching for some way to get out.

What she finds is cages full of grounders, a lot of blood, Anya, and thankfully a way to escape. 

Clarke feels guilty about leaving the rest of them behind, about not being able to to tell the 47 she’s making an escape. But she vows to gather an army and march on the mountain.She couldn’t save Bellamy, but she’ll be damned if she doesn’t come back for them and tear the mountain to shreds.

—-

She’s able to reason with Anya after their harrowing jump down a waterfall and together they hatch a plan to align their people and save those trapped in Mount Weather, grounder and sky person alike.Clarke leads them toward where she thinks she saw the Ark crash, and they part ways when they approach the gates.Anya pledges to get her an audience with their commander, and Clarke promises to convince her people that this is the only viable option. 

Clarke is aware that she’s dirty and dressed in grounder clothing; it was necessary in order to skirt by the reapers that had been making a home out of the tunnels under the mountain, but it still shocks her a bit when a wall full of Ark guards aim their guns at her, and one of them actually fires.

She feels the bullet graze her bicep, and it knocks the breath from her lungs and she stumbles, falling on her ass.Fire shoots up her arm and she feels another one pierce her shoulder, a through and through this time.Then the large metal gates are opening and people are racing toward her with more guns.

“Stay where you are!” one of them shouts, fixing his gun on her fallen form.

“Wait!” another shouts, and it’s that voice she recognizes.“Clarke?” 

She’s clutching her shoulder, blood welling up between her fingers, and trying to stay conscious.She so fucking exhausted and now she’s shot and bleeding and really this day (week, month, year) couldn’t get any worse.The figure closes in on her and bends down and she relaxes at the face she sees in the shadows and darkness, because yes, she definitely recognizes the voice.

“Mom,” she grunts, before she feels her eyes slip shut and her head hit the dirt.

—-

He punches Murphy upon sight at the dropship camp and they lock him up in a room in what survived of the Ark. _With_ Murphy.Handcuffed. He supposes the handcuffs are supposed to prevent him from attacking Murphy again, but Bellamy is willing to get creative if the situation arises.

He’s pacing and nearly stumbles when he sees them carry her in and past the doorway, towards the medical wing.Blonde hair matted with dirt, dressed in grounder clothing, unconscious and dripping blood everywhere.His heart seizes in his chest.

“Clarke?”It’s almost a whisper; he can’t believe what he’s seeing.He rushes to the doorway, only to be halted by the ark guard standing in its wake.“Clarke!?” His voice rises, and he pushes against the guard, his shoulder taking the brunt of the work.

From the time he’d managed to scramble away from the dropship’s firestorm and hide out in the darkness of the woods, avoiding Tristan, Bellamy didn’t know what had happened to her.He’d thought so many horrible things, considered every possible outcome, and when he’d been intercepted by the Ark and they finally managed to make it back to the dropship, he nearly lost it when they only found Murphy and an almost dead Raven.

Abby trails behind and he starts yelling for her instead. “Dr. Griffin?Dr Griffin!”The guard pushes against him harder and gains the upper hand, roughly shoving him back in his prison.Abby seems to startle at the sound of her name, but she approaches and Bellamy thanks every possible God for small favors.

“Clarke…” he leads, his eyes trailing to the direction in which she’d been taken.“What…?”His eyes flit back to Abby’s, pleading.

“They thought she was a grounder,” Abby says.“Shot at her.” her voice is hoarse and broken.“It looks like it just went through the shoulder, but she passed out.From exhaustion, most likely.”Abby swallows hard and Bellamy notices that she’s steeling herself.Her daughter needs her and there isn’t time to be weak.“She should be fine, I’m going to go attend to her myself, right now.”She begins backing out the room.

“Take me with you, please,” he begs, starting toward her.

“Bellamy…”

“Dr. Griffin, please,” he tries again.“She’s…” _Everything_.

Abby isn’t one hundred percent sure what’s going on between her daughter and Bellamy Blake, but she can see he’s distressed.Obviously he cares deeply for her daughter, but she needs her OR to be calm, and having Bellamy hover will do no good to her or Clarke.

“I’m sorry,” she says.“But you broke Ark laws when you attacked John, and I can’t release you at this time.Not until the council meets to discuss your punishment.” 

“Abby…” he tries once more, pleading to the part of her that’s Clarke’s mother, rather than the chancellor or the Ark’s top doctor.

“I’m sorry,” she says again.“But I have to help Clarke right now.”She turns and leaves him standing there, cold and anxious and defeated.

Behind him, Murphy snickers.“Well, guess space princess _is_ still alive.”He cocks his head.“For now.”

Yeah, Bellamy might just have to get a little creative.

—-

Clarke wakes to a hand gently carding through her hair and she thinks…hopes…”Bell?”Her voice is hoarse and groggy as she comes out of the anesthesia.Her eyes blink open and she takes in her surroundings.Dimly lit room, cold…everything is so cold.The table she’s laying on is stiff and uncomfortable.The figure above her comes more clearly into focus and she realizes it’s not Bellamy, but her mother.She feels her heart simultaneously sink into the depths of her stomach while a huge weight lifts from her shoulders.

Her mother is here.The _Ark_ is here.They have help, and she can finally take a second to breathe.

“Mom,” she says, trying to sit up.There’s a sharp pain in her shoulder, and she collapses back onto the table.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Abby soothes.“You were shot, sweetie.Take it easy, okay?”She asks, pushing her fingers through Clarke’s hair again and giving her a watery smile.“I’m so happy to see you.I was so worried when we found some of the others, and-”

“Wait, what?”Clarke asks as she makes another attempt to sit up. Abby offers help this time, supporting Clarke’s lower back and shoulder until she’s sitting up, and pivoting, feet dangling over the edge of the table.“What others?” she questions, her voice eager.

“We found Raven and John Murphy at the dropship camp.” Clarke can hear the hesitation in her mother’s voice, like there’s more and she isn’t sure if she should offer the information.Abby sighs and continues.“We also found Monroe, Sterling, and Bellamy, when we were tracking the dropship location.”

“You found…Bell, he’s…”

Abby takes Clarke’s hand.“He’s here, sweetie.He’s okay.”

Suddenly Clarke is pushing off the table, trying to get around her mother, aching shoulder be damned.He’s here.He’s _here_ , and she needs to get to him, feel his skin warm against hers, hold him, kiss him, count every damned freckle on that face she loves so much.She needs to assure herself that he’s alive and she didn’t kill him.Didn’t kill the one person on earth she’s come to unconditionally love and trust.“Where?” she asks, finally skirting around Abby.

“Clarke, sweetie you need to rest.”

“Where?!” she asks again, voice rising.

Abby sighs.“He’s being detained right now.”

“Excuse me?” Clarke asks, low and venomous.“If this is because of what he did to get on the dropship, you can go release him right now, Jaha pardoned him, I was there.”

“He punched John in the face when we got to the dropship.”

“Murphy tried to kill Bellamy! _And_ Raven!Mom, you can’t be serious.He’s in lock up for punching someone?We’re not on the Ark anymore, we’re on the ground, the rules are different. _Survival_ is different.We don’t have time for this, mom.You have no idea what we’re up against, and we need him.”She takes a deep breath, tries to steady her breathing, and walks out of the room.She doesn’t really know where she’s going because she doesn’t know where he’s being held, but there is nothing that’s going to stop her from finding him. 

Her mother is hot on her tail, yelling for Clarke to stop, but she just blocks Abby out.She starts calling for him, hoping for a response; hoping to hear that smooth, low voice that has quickly become her favorite sound.

“Bellamy? _Bellamy!?_ ” 

—-

He hears his name, and it’s _her_ voice and he smiles.Bellamy finds it comical that while he frantically races for the doorway and once again runs smack dab into the member of the guard, he’s actually quite calm, because Clarke is awake and alive and coming for him.

“Clarke!” He calls, hoping the sound of his voice will guide her to him, seeing as the guard has no intentions of letting him pass.His hands are still cuffed for God’s sake, and he’s pretty sure she’s going to have a conniption over that.She’s been extra protective ever since their day trip when Dax tried to kill them both, and he knows the fact that she closed the dropship door with him still outside is probably eating her up.

“Bellamy!?”He hears her again, closer now, and he calls her name one more time as the guard gives him one last hard shove back into the room.He sees the guard reach for his electric prod, sees him take the instrument in his hand, sees it click to life, the electric current running blue at the tip, and then…and then he see her, breathless in the doorway, hair a wild tangle, a bandage around her bicep and peeking out of the collar of her shirt.He’s never seen anything more beautiful.

Clarke takes a hesitant step into the room and he hears her breath hitch as her eyes rake over every inch of him, taking in the scattered bruises and cuts on his face and zeroing in on his hands, cuffed painfully behind his back.She gets the little crinkle in her brow that only appears when she’s furious and all he wants to do is kiss it away.Then her eyes jump to the guard and the electric prod and she’s moving quickly, placing herself between them.“Don’t you fucking touch him.”Her voice is dangerous and filled with animosity, and if he’s being honest with himself, it’s a little hot seeing her so riled up and fiercely protective. 

He’s always thought of that as his role, ever since he was six years old and his mother placed his brand new, wriggly baby sister in his scrawny little arms.Coming down to the ground was no different.Octavia still needed protecting; from the other delinquents, from the grounders, from the earth itself.He’s always thought of Clarke as fierce, even in the beginning when he was wary of her and the privilege she’d grown up with, but she had proved herself time and time again that she was strong.She wasn’t the upity space princess he’d been so convinced she was.She was just Clarke, fierce and loyal and protective of her people.She was _his_ princess. 

_More like queen._

She turns toward him once the guard fully lowers the prod and then her good arm is coming up and her hand is cupping his cheek.She’s got tears in her eyes that are threatening to spill over and he lowers his forehead to hers.“Hey princess,” he rasps.

She lets out a watery laugh and then surges up to kiss him.He kisses back eagerly, hotly, and it’s like coming home.He can feel the strain in his shoulders and wrists from the handcuffs and he lets out a grunt of pain as he breaks the kiss.“I’m sorry,” she whispers.“I’m sorry.”She runs her thumb over his cheek, lets her hand trail to the back of his head, fingers brushing through his hair.Clarke turns to look back over her shoulder and sees her mom in the doorway, a look of shock spread across her features.“Get these cuffs off of him.”Abby doesn’t move.“Mom,” she insists.Abby snaps out of her daze and comes into the room, but doesn’t make any moves to remove the handcuffs that Bellamy is silently cursing.His whole body aches from being restrained for so long and all he wants to do is fucking hold his girlfriend.

“Mom,” Clarke repeats.“Take the handcuffs off of Bellamy, he didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

Murphy snorts from his spot in the corner.“Tell that to my face,” he mutters.Clarke rolls her eyes, but otherwise chooses to ignore him.

“You’re the chancellor,” Clarke says, eyeing the pin on her mother’s jacket in disbelief.“Please.”

Abby sighs, defeated, and pulls a key from her pocket.She moves behind Bellamy, releases the cuffs on his hands and steps back.“What exactly is it we’re up against?” she asks, questioning Clarke’s earlier statement.“What’s so bad, Clarke?”

But Clarke isn’t paying any attention to her mother because Bellamy’s arms are finally free and he’s wrapping them around her, pulling her in close to his chest.She wraps her own good arm around him and presses her face into her neck, breathing him in.“I thought I lost you,” she whispers, and he can feel the few tears that are leaking out and sinking into his skin. 

He doesn’t care though.He just pulls her tighter, shakes his head, and whispers, “No.I’m right here.”They stand there, just holding each other, reveling in the fact that neither one of them is dead.

Eventually she pulls back, sniffles a little, and Bellamy reaches out, brushes her tears away, and presses a lingering kiss to her forehead.“What’s she talking about?” he asks, gesturing to her mother.“Tell me what happened.Where were you?”

Clarke sighs.“Mount Weather.And let’s just say I’m really glad the dropship didn’t land there like we were intended.”


	2. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We need to get them out. And we’re going to need an army to do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the love on the first chapter/drabble. You're all so wonderful.
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but my grammatical errors.

She wants to find a room immediately and be alone with him.Not just because she hasn’t seen him in two weeks and she’s ready to look him over inch by inch, map every speck of his body for injury, and then ravish him until morning.No, it’s because she really wants to talk about the mountain with him alone, first.Clarke wants Bellamy’s opinion on everything that’s happened, everything that she’s witnessed, before bringing forth the information to her mother and the rest of the council.If they can go into this conversation already on a united front, she knows they’ll have more success convincing the rest of the Ark that an alliance with the grounders is needed in order to save the 47.

But she doesn’t get what she wants this time.  Instead, Abby leads them to the council room where Marcus Kane is already waiting.

Kane looks surprised to see Clarke up and about and Bellamy out of lock up and says as much, but Abby quickly quiets him.  “Apparently we’re up against something big and we need all the manpower we can gather.”

“Explain,” Marcus says, so Clarke launches into the entire story of being abducted by the mountain and every horror she witnessed while trapped inside.The people being intolerant to radiation, the cages, bleeding the grounders and using their blood as treatment.How the 47 are too caught up in the chocolate cake and new clothes to see that they’re being fed lies.The mountain doesn’t want to protect them.Clarke’s pretty sure the mountain wants to use them; drain ever single drop of precious sky person blood for their own interests, and she can’t stand the thought of someone taking advantage of her friends; of the people she and Bellamy risked everything on a daily basis to protect.

“Being in space, we’ve cycled through so much radiation, we’ve become more resilient to it.The people in the mountain, Dante Wallace and his son, they’re not stupid,” Clarke says.“They have to know that.They have to have done tests on us when they first brought us in and we were unconscious.They’re offering them safety now, but…”

“How long until chocolate cake turns into hanging upside down and being bled dry?” Bellamy adds. 

Clarke nods and continues.“We need to get them out.And we’re going to need an army to do it.”

Abby sighs.“We don’t have one.The guard is already depleted; the _general population_ is depleted; we lost a lot of people from Alpha station when we came down, and we haven’t been able to get in contact with any of the other stations.We don’t know if any of them made it, and we can’t risk so many more when we need those we have to help build a sustainable civilization.”

“So then what do we do?” Kane asks.“Spare the few we can and hope it’s enough?”

Clarke shakes her head.“We need an alliance.And I know where we can get one.”

Bellamy already knows where she’s going with this line of thinking; he can practically see the wheels turning in her head.“Grounders?”

“Yes.We fought against them when we first landed, but think about it.Their people are trapped in the mountain too.We have a common enemy, and it might just be enough to broker a peace treaty and gain an alliance.I’ve already convinced Anya and she said she can get us a meeting with their commander.”

“You trust Anya?” Bellamy asks.“Clarke, she kidnapped you and Spacewalker.”She can see the apprehension on his face, knows he went through hell that day she didn’t come back.When she and Finn had finally stumbled back into camp, dirty, bloody, and exhausted, he’d dragged her back to his tent, cleaned her up, and held on tight until morning.She’s startled to realize that’s the last time they fell asleep together.The next day, the grounders had attacked and she’d closed the dropship door.He's alive in front of her, but Clarke knows some part of her will never forgive herself for what she did.

“What?!” Abby shrieks.“Kidnapped?!”

Clarke shoots Bellamy a look and sighs. _Thanks for that._ “That’s not important right now.Look, she escaped the mountain with me and _didn’t_ try to kill me, so I’d say that’s progress.I trust her to at least get us the meeting.”

Bellamy nods.“We have to adapt to survive.If aligning ourselves with our former enemy isn’t adapting, I don’t know what is.”

“So we’re agreed, then,” Clarke smiles.

Marcus and Abby take a little more convincing, arguing that as adults and members of the council, they should ultimately be making the decision that could alter the lives of all their people.Abby is the interim Chancellor for God’s sake.But in the end, they agree to the meeting as well.Kane wants peace, and Abby’s too exhausted to keep arguing.

Clarke rubs at her eyes with the heels of her hands, weary to the bone.“Is there an available room we can sleep in?” she asks.

Abby nods.“There are a few we can spare.I’ll get you two set up.”

“Just one, mom,” Clarke says, grabbing Bellamy’s hand. “We can share.”She sees Bellamy’s small smirk out the corner of her eye and she squeezes his hand.

“Oh,” Abby says, clearing her throat.“Uhm, yeah.Yes.Let’s just…” she gestures to the open doorway and then moves to walk out, Bellamy and Clarke following.

—-

Abby grabs them some food on the way to their room; it’s not much, nothing more than some bread and cheese, and a little dried fruit from the Ark’s storage, but it’s enough.She’d barely eaten in the mountain, too afraid they’d been putting something in the food to keep everyone compliant.She has no idea when the last time Bellamy ate was, but judging from the way he eyes the plate of food her mother carries, she can guess it’s been quite some time, and it infuriates her that her mother not only locked him up, but forgot to feed him. 

Clarke closes the door to their room after assuring Abby that they just need to eat and get a few hours of sleep, and no, there’s nothing else she can bring them, _they’re fine._

She turns back to face him and then her hands are everywhere, pushing at his jacket until it’s laying in a heap on the floor and lifting his shirt up and over his head.Bellamy huffs a laugh.

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down.Jesus Clarke, I missed you too, but maybe we should slow down a minute.You were shot, your shoulder—”

“My shoulder is fine,” she says, grabbing his wrists.“And I’m checking you for _injuries_.”She starts by inspecting his wrists, probing at the reddened area, looking for any breaks in his skin.They’re mostly chafed, but she doesn’t see any breaks which pleases her.No chance of infection.Her eyes skim over his chest and face, taking in all the bruises and small cuts.Purple splotches mar his ribs and she gently presses her fingers against them.He winces and she apologizes by placing a kiss over his heart.“I don’t think there’s any serious internal bleeding.Just regular bruises.No broken ribs either.Did my mom examine you at all?”

“Not really,” he says.“She cleaned the cut on my nose and put some medicine on it, but that’s about it.”

Clarke lets out a deep breath and closes her eyes, rests her forehead on his chest.His arms come around her and he drags a hand through her hair.His skin is warm, alive, and she turns her head so her ear is pressed against his heart, listening to every beat.They stand like that for a while, until she starts to pull away, and he notices the lone tear make its way down her cheek.She brushes it away quickly and grabs the plate of food from the small table in the room.“You need to eat,” she says, handing him the plate.“You’re wasting away,” she teases.He’s not wasting away, not by a long shot.His biceps are still big and drool worthy.She could scrub their dirty clothes clean on his abs.He’s strong and perfect and built for survival.Clarke loves him more than she can say.

He takes the plate from her, along with her hand and leads her to the bed where they both plop down on the edge.“Share,” he says.“You need to eat too.When’s the last time you had anything?”

She runs a hand over her face.“I don’t remember.” 

He pushes the plate into her hands, a pointed look on his face.She grabs a piece of the dried fruit and a piece of cheese, folds all of it up in a slice of bread and shoves the whole thing in her mouth.“Happy?” she muffles, mouth full and lips dusted with bread crumbs.

Bellamy huffs and does the same, smashing a whole fruit/cheese sandwich into his mouth.Then he turns to her and smiles, cheeks bulging.“Happy?” he echoes.She nods her head and then they both break out in a small bought of laughter, trying not to choke on the food in their mouths.

She swallows and leans over to kiss his cheek.“I love you,” she says quietly, and it’s the first time she’s told him.She’s known for a while; since before closing the dropship door.Since before their battle with the grounders.Since before she was kidnapped by Anya.Since their day trip, when they finally decided to be together.Maybe even before that. 

She knows it’s fast, but life on the ground is fast, and loving him is easy—this boy who had worked so hard to keep their people safe; keep his sister safe; keep her safe.This boy who had worked with her to build a home for all of the delinquents and made sure they knew they were important; that they meant something; that they were cared for.

His eyes darken and he grabs her hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing small kisses to her curled fingers.“I love you, too.”And then he’s kissing her lips, slow and languid, tasting every bit of her.The plate clatters to the ground as he pulls her onto his lap and her thighs bracket his hips while her hands move to his hair, and they reacquaint themselves with each other.His hands drop to her hips and squeeze once before inching up and resting on the skin under the hem of her shirt.He rubs small circles with his thumbs and Clarke sighs against his lips, happy for the first time in weeks.She wants more; wants them both to strip naked and come together in a clash of hands and lips and moans, but despite what she told him, her shoulder _does_ kind of ache, and his ribs are bruised and sore.

She breaks the kiss and rests her forehead against his, fingers still gently running through his hair and coming to rest at the nape of his neck.He kisses her once more, softly, and then scoots them back on the bed so they can lay down.

“Mom said Monroe and Sterling were with you.And that Raven was also at the dropship.Is anyone else here?”

Bellamy pulls her more tightly against him and sighs.“Finn didn’t make it,” he whispers.“I couldn’t—that grounder, Tristan, he got a hold of him, and I couldn’t—” 

Clarke takes his hand, threads their fingers together and squeezes.“It’s not your fault,” she says.He nods, but she knows he blames himself on some level for every death of one of their friends.“Does Raven know?” 

He shakes his head.“I don’t think so.I didn’t get a chance to tell her before they threw me in lockup.”

“Fuck,” Clarke whispers.“Mom’s probably going to have to do surgery to remove the bullet from her spine, and then what?She wakes up, and we tell her Finn is dead?The ground was supposed to be our second chance.Why does it have to be so unforgiving?”

“I don’t know, Clarke.But we’ll do our best to make it better.We’ll fight every day to live and save everyone we can.”

“Bellamy,” she whispers.“Your sister…she wasn’t in the mountain.”

He swallows, nods.“I know.Lincoln—I asked him to take her somewhere safe.They’re headed to Luna and the sea clan.”Clarke sighs, relieved to know Octavia is okay.That’s one less thing for Bellamy to worry about.

He runs his free hand down her back and she presses a kiss to his shoulder.They have so much work to do, convincing the grounder commander that an alliance is necessary.But they’ll worry about that in the morning, after finally getting a good night’s sleep together.

—-

Octavia shows back up at camp bruised and bloody, with a crazed Lincoln in tow. 

“Reapers took him,” she says, wincing as she tugs on his restraints and drags him.“Did something to him, made him one.I don’t know how, but we need to fix it.”

Clarke gapes and Bellamy frets and they end up cuffing Lincoln to a reenforced steel beam in an Ark airlock.They get Abby, and Clarke doesn’t know how she does it, how she finds the solution, but about three hours later she figures out that it’s a drug that made him a reaper and that a detox may save him.When his heart stops, she uses one of the electric probes the guard carry.They resuscitate him and when he comes to, he’s less crazed, and more Lincoln.

Clarke knows one of the biggest battles the grounders have is with the Reapers, and if they can offer the commander a way to turn them back, they have something to offer toward peace.

Abby’s next priority is Raven.She’s been stable since they brought her in, but the bullet Murphy shot her with is pressing on her spine.Abby warns her that surgery may not work; it might make the situation worse, but Raven is persistent and pushes for Abby to try. 

She comes out of the surgery with nerve damage and a lot of pain in her left leg.Wick makes her a brace, and then they finally tell her about the mountain, and Finn.It doesn’t go how Clarke thinks it will.Raven says she’s fine, but Clarke can see her start to shut down.Raven being Raven, though, the mourning doesn’t last long.She locks herself in engineering for two hours, and when she emerges there’s a new fire in her eyes.

“Ok,” she says.“Where do we start?”

They determine that the mountain has been blocking their radio signals and that’s why they can’t get in communication with the other Ark stations that came down.They also figure out that the acid fog is being controlled by the mountain and shutting it off is key to their success in rescuing their friends.They just have to figure out how.

Raven gets started working on the radios, searching for a way around the block the mountain has on their signals.Two days later, when she’s finally found a way to break through, an envoy of grounders arrive outside the gates of Camp Jaha, and Bellamy and Clarke find themselves finally coming face to face with the commander.

The first thing Clarke notices upon entering the commander’s tent is the intricate throne she sits upon.It’s made of winding branches and debris, and Clarke’s pretty sure there may even be a few animal skulls on the armrests meant to intimidate.The girl sitting upon it is just as fierce.She has black paint over her eyes and battle worn leathers on her body.The dagger she’s twirling in her hand is no joke either.Indra flanks her left, Anya is there on her right, and this oddly brings Clarke a small bit of relief.

The commander rises, steps forward, looks between them, taking them both in.She’s small, Clarke notices, not much taller than she herself, but the energy the commander emits is big and powerful and menacing.This is a woman not to cross, and Clarke swallow hard, running over their pitch in her head, again and again.

“There are two of you,” the commander says, and Bellamy and Clarke share a quick look before returning their attention to the grounder warrior.“I was told I would be speaking with the leader of the sky people.”

“With all due respect, commander,” Clarke starts, “We are the leaders of our people.”

“No,” she says, eyes flicking back and forth between them, before settling back on Clarke.“Anya has spoken only of you.If you wish for this meeting to continue, your guard dog can wait outside.”Her eyes flick back to Bellamy and she sneers.

Clarke’s own eyes flash with fury.“He is _not_ —”

“Clarke,” Bellamy warns, voice low.He’s sized up the commander as well, knows a warrior when he sees one.They need this alliance to save their people, and if the commander wants a meeting solely with Clarke, he's willing to give it, no matter how uncomfortable it makes him to leave her alone, unguarded and unarmed.Besides, he already knows she’ll recant the conversation to him later, word for word.

But Clarke’s not having any of that nonsense.“No,” she says fiercely.“We lead our people _together_.He stays here.”She grabs his hand, squeezes, and she can’t help but notice the commanders eyes flit down to their linked hands, a puzzled look upon her face, like she can’t understand the need, the ease it is to lead with a partner.

“Lexa,” Anya says.“Indra and I are here with you.Let Clarke keep her second.We want our people out of the mountain and it’ll require compromise on both sides.”Anya’s change of heart toward the sky people is just enough to show Clarke that she was able to make a big enough breakthrough with her when they escaped.It gives her hope for this alliance.She just also hopes that the commander can fall in with that line of thinking.

“Fine,” Lexa says,“He stays.What do I get in return?What does aligning with your people do for mine?As far as I’m concerned, Skaikru are bringers of death.Your flares burned one of our villages to the ground.You massacred 300 of our best warriors with that flaming hunk of scrap metal you entered this world on.What means do you have to offer?It appears you need us much more than we need you.”

“We have technology,” Clarke says.“Guns.”

“We do not touch guns,” Lexa sneers.“They’re vile.They bring about the mountain men and get us captured.”

Bellamy lets out a low laugh.“I’m pretty sure your people didn’t get themselves thrown in the mountain from touching a gun.”

“Knowledge,” Clarke interjects, trying to maintain the small level of peace they have.“We have knowledge of the inside of the mountain.I have a map.”

“Anya was in the mountain as well.We have her knowledge.”

“Anya was only in the cages and the tunnels.I was in their living space, their hallways and dormitories.I know where they eat, where they sleep, where they spend their free time.I’ve been in their President’s office.Joining our people, sharing our knowledge and tech, strategizing and building an army.That is our best chance.This alliance—we need each other, Lexa.”

“The reapers,” Bellamy adds.“We also know how to turn the Reapers back.We did it with Lincoln.”

“Lincoln is a traitor,” Indra spits.“Why—”Lexa holds up a hand, cutting her off.

“You can really do this?” she asks.

“Yes,” Clarke says, nodding.“It’s a drug that makes them Reapers, one I can only assume is also coming from the mountain.If they can detox from the drug in a controlled environment where there’s access to restart the heart, they’ll come back more or less themselves.When this is over, when we get all of our people out, we’ll turn back every last reaper we can.”

Lexa is quiet for a moment, thinking.After what feels like hours to Clarke, she finally speaks.“Very well then.You have your alliance.But there will be conditions.You and a small envoy will travel with us back to TonDC where we will set up our base camp.From there we strategize.Indra and a group of our warriors will remain here to train your people into soldiers.You cannot possibly have enough guns to arm them all, so they will learn swordsmanship, knife techniques, and hand-to-hand combat.Are we agreed?”

Clarke looks at Bellamy and he squeezes her hand, gives her a small nod.“Looking to you, princess.”

She faces Lexa, and with an outstretched hand, she aligns their people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Constructive criticism is always welcome!


	3. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s during their trip to TonDC when Bellamy proposes the worst plan Clarke has ever heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the love!
> 
> Whoopsies, the rating went up! Little bit of a smutty bit at the end, which isn't something I've written much of before, so if it sucks, I'll work on it!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

It’s during their trip to TonDC when Bellamy proposes the worst plan Clarke has ever heard.

“No,” she says firmly.  “Absolutely not.”

“Clarke—”

“No!” she says, voice way past any form of calm.“If you think I’m going to let you willingly go into the mountain, you don’t know me very well.It’s a suicide mission, Bellamy.They will kill you.Drain your blood, and leave you to die, and I am not letting that happen.Not ever.”

“I know it’s dangerous, but an inside man, Clarke.That’s our best shot.We get someone inside to shut off the acid fog and then we have a real chance at getting them out.”

“And by someone, you’re volunteering yourself,” she says, shaking her head.“No.Raven made radio contact with Monty, they’ve got a set up hidden in an art storage room.We can work with him and Miller, get one of them to disable the fog.”

“You think after your escape, the rest of them aren’t being watched 24/7?”

She can see how eager and keen he is on this plan.And if she’s being honest, the only reason she thinks it’s the worst plan ever is because actually it’s pretty good.She just hates that he’s offering himself up to get it done.He wants to help, do everything possible to make this alliance work and get their people home, especially since Lexa seemed so ready to dismiss him and deal solely with Clarke. 

But she can’t lose him.Not again.He’s too important to their people.Too important to her.She’s being selfish and she knows it, but she doesn’t care.Not this time.

Clarke sighs, grabs his hand, rubs softly above his thumb.“We’ll figure something out.This— your life—” she sighs, rubs her free hand over her face.“It’s not worth the risk, Bellamy.”Her voice breaks on his name and he has to fight the urge to pull her into him.They’re walking in the middle of an envoy of grounders and Arkers.Lexa isn’t too far ahead of them, riding her horse and flanked by Indra and Anya.Kane is behind them with Octavia and Lincoln bringing up the rear.He sighs, and tries once more.

“Just think about it,” he says.“We could go in through the tunnels where you escaped, Lincoln knows the way, he said that’s where they’d dose the reapers.He gets me there, I sneak in, disable the fog, observe, get more intel.We keep radio contact.It can work.”

“Now you want to bring Lincoln into it too?Jesus Bellamy, your sister is _really_ going to love this plan.”Clarke knows she’s being harsh, but this is ridiculous.He’s not risking his life.He’s _not_.

“What am I gonna love?” Octavia pipes up.

“Nothing,” Bellamy says quickly.

“Your brother wants to sneak into the mountain and play spy.” Clarke says.“And he wants Lincoln to get him in.”

“What?” Octavia asks, voice deadly, and Bellamy feels himself swallow hard as he eyes the sword at her back.His sister has become quite the fierce warrior, getting more and more dangerous.He’s not sure what means she’d go to these days to get what she wants.

“He thinks it’s the only option,” Clarke says.

“Like hell it is!” Octavia exclaims. “You are not risking your life _and_ Lincoln’s life.You and Clarke made this alliance for a reason.So we’d have training and an army.You’re not going to war against an entire mountain of people alone.”

“Lincoln?”Bellamy asks.“Kane?Any thoughts?”The two have sped up their pace from the back of the pack and now the five of them walk clustered together.

“It could work,” Lincoln says quietly.

“It could,” Kane echoes.“But we’d need to plan it out step by step.You can’t just go off in the middle of the night, half-cocked without a solid strategy.”

Clarke sees a small spark in Bellamy’s eyes and knows what he’s thinking.That it would be better that way; just leave in the night and take care of everything himself.She squeezes the life out of his hand and sends a death glare his way.“Don’t you even think about it.” 

“I could,” Bellamy says quietly, turning back to Clarke.“In case you forgot, princess, I don’t take orders from you.This,” he says, pointing between them, “This is a partnership, not a dictatorship.” 

“You wouldn’t,” she says.“You’re not cruel.You wouldn’t do that me.You wouldn’t do that to Octavia.”And she’s right.He would never put either of them through that; waking up and finding him gone, wondering if he was alive.Not saying goodbye.He couldn’t.“Besides, if you leave in the middle of the night without any semblance of a plan, I will follow you into that mountain and drag you back out myself.”

He sends her a small smirk.“No semblance of a plan, huh?Does that mean you’ll consider it?If we break it down piece by piece?”

Clarke lets out a huff, not confirming or denying. But she does latch onto his arm, press a kiss to his shoulder, and settle into his side as they continue their trek into grounder territory.

—-

“I could not help overhear the argument you were having with your second during our journey.” 

Clarke is sitting by the fire when Lexa approaches her.They’ve finished dinner, a grand feast the grounders presented them with, and solidified the terms of their alliance.There’s nothing else to be done this night, so she’s sitting, taking in the heat the fire offers, thinking, thinking, _thinking_.She doesn’t want to send him into the mountain, but she can’t deny any longer that it’s a decent plan.He seems to think it’s their only option.Kane and Lincoln both agree it’s good.Octavia is the only one on her side and Clarke is thankful that someone else besides her loves Bellamy enough to be selfish about his well-being.About his _life_.

Clarke sighs and scrubs her hands over her face.“May I sit?” Lexa asks.Clarke nods and gestures to the open seat on the log next to her.“His strategy is a good one.Dangerous, but it has the potential to pay off.”

“It’s idiotic.”

“You are blinded.”

“Excuse me?” Clarke asks, indignant.

“Your second—”

“He has a name,” Clarke growls.

“Bellamy,” Lexa corrects.“He is more than just your second.He is your beloved, yes?”

Clarke can see Bellamy out of the corner of her eye, standing with Kane and Indra, pouring over maps of the area.He kept her map of the mountain and she can only guess they’re going over it as well, devising the best strategy for entrance.They’ve been together for months now, leading their people and loving each other.Sometimes she can’t believe it.She was sent to the ground to die and instead she lived.Made friends.Found Bellamy.Boyfriend has never seemed like a strong enough word for what he is to her. 

Partner, friend, protector, lover. 

So many words. 

But, beloved.She thinks that one is the most fitting.

“Yes,” she whispers.

“I had one of those once,” Lexa says.“Costia.Ice Nation captured her. Their queen thought she knew all of my secrets, because she was mine, and for that they tortured her.Killed her.Cut off her head, and returned it to me.”

Clarke swallows.“I’m sorry,” she says, voice wavering.

“I was not sure that I would ever get over the pain of it, but I did.”

“How?”

“For recognizing it for the weakness it was.”

“What?Love?”

“Yes.”

“So, what?You just stoped caring about everyone?”

“Yes.”

Clarke’s brow scrunches, just a bit. She feels her head start to shake, like she can’t believe what she’s hearing, and her eyes drift back to Bellamy. 

There’s no way…

No part of her could ever think…

There’s no way she could have ever done _any_ of this without him. 

“No,” she says.“Love is not a weakness, Lexa.It’s a strength.It’s someone else by your side, holding your hand, making the hard decisions and sharing the load.It’s…it’s how we survive.”

“But for how long?” Lexa asks.“How long do those trapped in the mountain survive because _you_ love someone?His plan is good, Clarke. The best chance at making use of our army. You should consider it.Because, we may have an alliance, but I am still the Commander, and if you do not send him in, I will.”With that Lexa rises, dangerous as ever, and returns to her tent.

Clarke’s head falls to her hands and she lets out a shaky breath. 

I will.

_I_ will.

It doesn’t matter anymore what Clarke thinks of the plan, because Lexa approves and Lexa commands the army and Lexa gets to decide everything in the end, alliance or not.

He’s going into the mountain and there’s nothing she can do about it. 

Still…Clarke thinks it might be better if Bellamy hears the news from her.If he knows, going into this that she believes in him, and trusts him to get the job done and stay safe while doing it.Because really, she does.She’s just being selfish.

The word has been buzzing around her head all day. 

Lexa may have been able to get over the pain of losing her love, but Clarke doesn’t think she could ever get over losing Bellamy.Not really.

She thinks back to her time in the mountain, when to her knowledge, he _was_ dead.Her first few days in the stark white room, alone and scared, she cried at the loss of him.Every day in that room was crippling.It wasn’t until she found her friends and had a goal of escaping that she could focus her mind on something other than him.She knows though, that if she’d made it back to camp and hadn’t found him there, she’d find herself in another barren room, back to being alone and scared and full of tears.Back to being heartbroken.

She hears him approach before she sees him, boots crunching in the leaves and debris from the fire.He sits next to her, throws an arm around her shoulder and pulls her into him, pressing a kiss to her temple.“Hey.What was that about?”Bellamy asks, nodding to the tent Lexa disappeared into.

“Nothing really,” Clarke says, huffing a weak laugh.“Just Lexa letting me know that loving you is a weakness that’s going to get all of our people killed.”

“What?!” He exclaims, attempting to rise to his feet, go after her, Clarke supposes.But she grabs his arm and pulls him back down next to her.

“No,” she says.“Stay here.”Bellamy’s focus turns back to her, and she can’t help but let her eyes trail over every constellation of freckles on his face.“She lost someone she loved, and that’s all she sees.A weakness she allowed herself, that got someone else killed.She’s wrong, though.You and I make each other stronger,” she says.“But I need to stop being selfish.”

“You’re not selfish, Clarke.”

“I am when it comes to you.”

“Clarke—”

“I love you,” she interrupts.“And I want you to stay here with me, but you were right.This is a partnership, and I haven’t been acting like much of a partner.We need someone to turn off the fog, and Monty and Miller and the others probably are being watched.If we can’t get close enough to the mountain, then what good is it having an army?”She grabs his hand, holds it close to her chest.To her heart.“I trust you, Bellamy.And if you think you can do this, I think you can too.”

—-

They’re given a hut to stay in, complete with a bed and a small table and chairs, and Clarke follows Bellamy inside, feet dragging, body weary.She takes off her boots, and Bellamy does the same, placing both pairs near the door.Then she shucks her jacket and throws it over one of the rickety chairs.

Arms go around her shoulders and pull her back into a strong chest, and she feels tears prick her eyes.He’s pressing kisses into her neck, nuzzling the spot behind her ear that makes her knees go weak. 

And she can’t shut off her brain. 

What if this is the last time they’re together.What if—

No. 

She can’t think like that.

She reaches one hand up to clutch at the arms around her while the other quickly brushes away the few tears that have escaped. 

“I love you,” he whispers, breath hot against her ear.

“Don’t you dare make this a goodbye,” she breathes.

She feels him shake his head.“It’s not,” he says, turning her to face him.“Not even close.”His words are fierce and she finds herself surging up to kiss him, urgent and needy, almost desperate.She wants to feel him everywhere.

She strips the rest of her clothes as quickly as possible, and Bellamy does the same, tossing them into a crumpled heap.Then his hands are on her and Clarke is happy, _so_ happy, for the first time in weeks.His fingers trail down her spine as he peppers kisses on her neck, her jaw, drag back to her lips.Her own hands run through his hair, down to the nape of his neck holding him close. 

They move together, lips fused, to the bed.Bellamy pushes her into the mattress and settles over her as his lips start to journey down her body, over the swell of her breasts and the soft curves of her hips.He presses slow, hot kisses to the insides of her thighs and Clarke feels her breath catch.Her hand drifts to his hair, and threading her fingers through the soft, dark curls, she gives him a small tug.Clarke feels his small laugh against her skin, and then his mouth is on her, right where she craves it most. 

He tongues at her and a shiver runs down her spine, a delicious feeling she wants more of.She tells him as much with her whispered pleas of “please” and “more” and then he’s pressing two fingers at her entrance, slowly pushing them inside and stroking in tandem with his tongue.She loves his hands.Loves them so much.They’re the best hands she’s ever seen, ever held, ever felt.Sometimes she finds herself desperate for a piece of paper and the time to sketch them.They make her body come alive and settle down all at once. 

She clutches his hair tighter, making sure he doesn’t go anywhere.Close, close, close, she’s so close.The warmth in her belly spreads over her entire body, and then the waves are crashing and Clarke’s moaning his name as she comes down from the high.He continues to press soft kisses everywhere; back to the inside of her thighs, back up her stomach, through the valley of her breasts, ghosting over each nipple, back to her lips.

Clarke can taste herself on his lips, feel his hardness press against her center, and it spurs her on.She kisses Bellamy harder, delivering every ounce of love she feels for him.Her hand reaches down, wraps around his length, and he groans.

“Fuck, Clarke,” he pants in her ear.She smiles, presses a kiss to his cheek and strokes, up, down, up.His panting get heavier and Clarke guides him to her entrance. 

“Need you,” she breathes.“Need you, need you.”He pushes inside and they both moan at the contact, together at last after weeks apart.Bellamy sets the pace, slow and then faster, and she moves with him, matching thrust for thrust.It doesn’t take long for her to come, still sensitive from the first shattering orgasm he delivered.Clarke clutches him close as he continues to thrust, runs her hands up his back, whispers in his ear, kisses every inch of skin she can reach.

“I love you.I love you so much.Please, Bell.Please come for me.”Her voice is ragged and raw and wrecked.It breaks. 

He spills into her with one final thrust, face pressed into her neck, incoherent words on his lips.His weight is heavy on top of her, but Clarke doesn’t care.She loves it, really.His big body presses her further into the mattress, solid and protective and she holds him there inside her for as long as possible.

Clarke wishes they could stay in this moment forever, safe in this little hut, warm in the bed and blanket furs.But she knows tomorrow morning he’ll wake and leave for the mountain, and they won’t be safe anymore.They won’t be _this_.

“Please don’t leave me,” she whispers.And he knows what she means.

_Don’t leave me alone on this fucked up planet…_

_Don’t die in there…_

_Don’t…_

He kisses her neck, jaw, lingers on her lips, before pulling away and leaning his forehead against hers.

“I won’t,” he promises.“Not ever.”

He kisses her again, and it says everything.

_I’ll see this through._  

_I’ll save them all._

_I’ll come home to you._

_I love you._

And it’s exactly what she needs to get through this.


	4. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She finds him in a cage a week after he leaves and her heart. Stops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you the love and feedback!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

She finds him in a cage a week after he leaves and her heart. _Stops_.

It’s after she sends him in.

After he makes radio contact for the first time.

After he warns them the mountain is going to drop a bomb on TonDC.

After she makes sure every last Arker and grounder is clear of the village, even though Lexa warns her it puts Bellamy at risk.

After he turns off the acid fog, and they march on the mountain.

After Lexa betrays them at the gates.

After she and Octavia make it inside from the tunnels.

After he doesn’t greet her at the door with Monty, Jasper, and Maya.

_After._

She can’t help but feel like this is her fault.

Bellamy is unconscious in the cage, laying on his side, curled into himself.Clarke can see a smear of blood staining the back of his stolen guard uniform shirt, and various cuts liter his face.She’s frozen for all of five seconds, and then she’s moving, shaking the cage door, calling his name, calling for help, looking for something to break the lock.She finds a broken pipe in a corner of the room and she hurls it into the lock, over and over, using every bit of strength she has to get to him.

“Bellamy,” she says, voice a mess of tears.“Bell, wake up, please?”She’s openly crying now, the tears running down her dirty, sooty cheeks, and her arms are aching, but she doesn’t care.He is all she can see.All she can focus on.The lock finally gives after one more hit from the pipe and then she’s tossing it aside, ripping the lock from its cradle, and pulling the cage door open.

From the sound of grating metal on metal, or the sound of her voice, she’s not sure, Bellamy stirs, just a little, and she feels her chest flood with so much relief.

Not dead, not dead, _not dead._

Clarke reaches for him with shaky hands and weak knees.She’s kneeling now, her fingers pushing his sweat soaked curls from his forehead, her own coming down to rest on his temple.“Bellamy,” she whispers.She feels him start to move beneath her, grunts of pain escaping his lips.

“Is this,” he rasps.“Part where…you say…told you so?”

She shakes her head against him.“No,” she says with a watery laugh.“I would never.”

“Liar,” he breathes, pulling himself to his knees.Clarke moves to help him stand and when he’s on his feet, he stagers, shoulder crashing into the side of the cage.

“Whoa,” she says, reaching for him.“Can you walk?”

“Yeah,” he nods.“Just need a minute.Dizzy.”

Bellamy leans against the inside of the cage for a moment and Clarke takes the time to quickly asses what she couldn’t see when he was lying passed out on the barred floor.She doesn’t see any drill marks.They haven’t taken his bone marrow.She looks in his eyes, doesn’t see dilated pupils and rules out a concussion.The blood stain she saw on his back is still worrying though, and she prays to any God listening that it’s just a shallow cut she can stitch up later.

“Okay,” Bellamy says.“Let’s go.”

Clarke leads him out of the cage and he leans into her, arm slung around her shoulders, her own across his lower back.He can tell her how he ended up here later.Right now all she can focus on is getting him out of this room, level, mountain.Back to camp, safe behind gates.

She tells him of Lexa’s betrayal and to say Bellamy’s pissed is an understatement. There are so few of them here and she can only hope they’re enough.She tells him Octavia is somewhere with Jasper and Maya, Raven and Wick are trying to science a way out this, Miller is rounding up whoever he can to fight, and they’re supposed to meet Monty in the control room.They make it out into the hallway and all of five feet before Clarke hears a slow clap.

“Well, well,” the voice says.“I see you found your present, Clarke.” 

She spins them both around only to come face to face with Cage Wallace and a loaded gun.Clarke feels the cool metal of her own where it rests in the waistband of her jeans against her lower back.She wants to make a move for it, but Cage is unpredictable.He has a crazed look in his eyes and any sudden movement may spook him into doing something stupid.

“Cage,” she says, but he ignores her.

“Once I located your spy, I knew he’d be the perfect bait to draw you out.See, I made a deal with the grounder commander, and we let her people go, but not before she told me some interesting facts about you.” He’s waving the gun around now, stepping closer and closer.

Clarke swallows hard, and she can feel Bellamy’s arm slide slowly, so, so, slowly, from her shoulders and down her back.

_Bring guns.  He knows._

“What do you want, Cage?” She has to keep him talking, keep him focused on her and not Bellamy’s movements.

“What do I want?” Cage laughs.“I think you know exactly what I want.I’ve been trapped in these walls my entire life, only getting to go outside for limited amounts of time, _never_ able to actually breathe the air. But you can give me that,” he says, pointing at her with the gun.“Your people.It’s all so simple, really.The blood, that was just the start.A good way to fix a dose of radiation poisoning.But the _bone marrow_.”His face lights up like an Alpha station child on Christmas morning.“We can actually live fulfilled lives with a marrow transplant.Go outside.Have real experiences in the world.We don’t have to be prisoners to this bunker anymore.”He spits the final bit and Clarke can feel Bellamy’s hand, finally on the handle of the gun.

“So what happens to us, then?” she asks.

“You die,” Cage says, smarmy smile on his face.“Sacrifices have to be made, Clarke.You fell from the sky so we could live,” he says, gesturing to the mountain around them.

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, so soft and so low only she can hear.And she knows it’s his signal.

“No,” she says.“We fell from the sky so _we_ could live.”And with that, Cage, sufficiently distracted, Bellamy pulls the gun from her jeans and she ducks down as he aims it straight at Cage, fires, and hits home.

Cage stagers back into the hallway wall, his own hand squeezing the trigger of his gun and sending a stray bullet into the floor.A slow trickle of blood leaks from the hole in his forehead and he slumps down the wall, nothing but a scarlet smear left in his wake.

“That’s for hanging me upside down, you prick.”Bellamy stumbles a bit as the effort of exerting so much energy in his weakened state catches up to him.But Clarke is there, always, always there, to catch him.

She leans her head against his collarbone, breathing rough and ragged as her own adrenaline begins to wain.His arms come around her and they hold each other for just a moment.Just long enough to hear heart beats, assure each other they’re alive.She pulls back first and leans up to place the softest kiss on his lips.“Come on.We have to go.”

—-

They meet Monty in the control room and are faced with the unimaginable.

Somehow, the mountain has kidnapped her mother.And Kane.They’ve found Raven and Wick.So many other people that were supposed to be safe at camp are now chained up, waiting for torture.They’re drilling into them, and the screams cut through Clarke like a knife.

She kills Dante Wallace.

Bellamy takes her hand and they pull a lever and together they irradiate the mountain.

There was no other choice.It was kill or be killed.Clarke doesn’t want to take any more lives; she’s already taken so many having pulled another lever a little over a month ago.

But.

This is the ground, and it’s proven to be harsh.Sometimes it’s completely, utterly unavoidable.

They collect their people after the mountain men have all fallen and when they get outside, Octavia is there clutching an inconsolable Jasper, and Clarke knows.

Maya.

She wishes they could have saved her.Brought her back to camp in a hazmat suit, put her in an airlock, and asked for volunteers to donate little bits of bone marrow until they had enough to make her immune.

She was kind to Clarke.She kept Bellamy safe.Clarke can tell Jasper loved her.

Bellamy leans into her, and Clarke holds him a little closer.They take their people home.

—-

The gates to Camp Jaha come into view and so many of the 47 around her pick up their pace, running inside to find their parents, their friends, any and everyone they can.

Clarke and Bellamy pull up the rear and Clarke considers it for all of two seconds.Taking Bellamy and running, far, far away.To a bunker deep in the woods, or Luna and the sea clan.Somewhere, anywhere that’s not _here_. 

But there are so many other people to think about that depend on them.Monty and Harper and Jasper and Miller.Raven.Abby.Lincoln and Octavia.Bellamy would never leave his sister, and Clarke would never ask him to.And where Bellamy goes, Clarke goes.If he stays, she stays.And it’s okay.She’ll bear it because she has him.They have each other.

Bellamy notices her pace slow and his arm tightens around her.“Hey,” he says.“Let’s go inside.You still have to patch me up,” he smiles, lips dancing across her temple.

Clarke lets out a breath, nods and smiles back.She leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek, noses at the place her lips lingered.“Yeah.Let’s go inside.”

She takes Bellamy straight to medical and gets him sitting upright on an exam table.She backs away a few steps, looks around her, takes in all the injuries.Raven is unconscious, having taken a large brunt of the drilling.Abby tends to her while Jackson flits around to everyone else.Harper is scarred and has bruised ribs, not to mention her own drill marks.Monty sits with her while Miller paces.Jasper has to be sedated, he’s so wrecked. 

It’s so much.Too much.Clarke just needs a minute.Just one, to catch her breath and refocus.Jackson comes over to them, eyes taking in Bellamy’s injuries.

“Do you want me to get Abby?” he asks.

“No,” Clarke says.“No.No one else is touching him.”She takes a deep breath, looks at her hands, finds dirt and blood under her nails.“I just need to wash my hands.I’ll be right back.”She squeezes Bellamy’s knee and then turns to head for the bathroom.

She’s blissfully alone in the confines of the tiled walls and she takes in her appearance in the small mirror that hovers over the sink.Her hair is a tangled mess, face streaked with tear tracks.Her eyes begin to water again and then she’s crying, deep heaving sobs as she scrubs her hands and face, watches the water turn from crystal clear to murky reddish-brown.

Clarke thinks about everything she’s done to get here, to this place.Thinks about every step in the road that went right and every step that went wrong.

She saved the grounders in TonDC.But is that what gave Bellamy away?Is that what alerted Cage, and got Bellamy thrown in one?And what did she get for it?Lexa abandoned them. _Betrayed_ them.Took action that said her people were worth saving, and Clarke’s weren’t.She thinks that’s what hurts the most.

Five minutes.She gives herself five minutes to break down and then she sucks up the last of her tears, dries her hands and eyes, squares her shoulders, and makes her way back to Bellamy.

When she reenters medical, he’s still sitting upright on the table where she left him, but he’s removed his stolen shirt.His chest is slicked with sweat and he’s half turned at the waist, trying to wipe the blood from his back.He must see her from the corner of his eye because he turns back to her, smiles a little.“I know you said no else touches me, but I figured I could at least touch myself, right?” The smile grows at his attempt at innuendo and Clarke nearly breaks.

She found him in a cage hours ago, unconscious and bleeding, and now he’s home, alive and mostly well.He went on a suicide mission and survived. 

She loves him _so much_.So, so much, it hurts.

“Clarke?” he asks when she doesn’t respond.And then she’s moving toward him, taking his face in her hands and kissing him in front of everyone.Jackson, her mom, their friends. _Everyone_.But it doesn’t matter.Nothing else matters.He kisses her back and his hands fall toher hips and tug her close between the cradle of his open legs.She breaks the kiss, but her lips don’t leave his skin.They travel to his cheek, temple, forehead.To the crease between his brow.She kisses every inch of his face she can before moving back to his lips and lingering.She breaks it once more to breathe and Bellamy huffs a laugh as their foreheads come together.

“What was that for?” he asks.

“Because I love you, you idiot.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, nodding against her.“Makes sense.”

She laughs, pulls back and makes to move away.She needs to look at his back.But Bellamy grabs her hand and pulls her back in for one more kiss.“I love you, too,” He whispers.

She grabs the rag he was using and moves to his back where she finds a large cut, stretching from mid spine and curving down toward his hip.Luckily it’s not too deep.She cleans it sufficiently with Ark issued alcohol, clearing away the blood, sweat, and dirt, making sure there’s little chance of infection setting in.She threads a needle and begins to stitch.

“Fuck,” he curses, and flinches at the first bite of the needle breaking his skin.

“You have to be still,” she says, eyes scanning the room.“Octavia!”His sister comes over from where she’d been helping Jackson administer pain medication.“Hold his hand?” Clarke asks, indicating the needle and his wound.Octavia nods and grabs Bellamy’s hand.They’d reunited on the trek back to camp.Octavia had held onto her brother for a solid minute before letting go, punching him in the arm, and then hugging him again.

He rolls his eyes, but squeezes his sister’s hand and curses again when the needle pushes back through his skin.

“Don’t be a baby,” Clarke says, and then her mouth is next to his ear.“If you’re good, I’ll kiss it better later,” she teases, and then she presses a quick one to the shell of his ear and gets back to work.

Octavia’s face scrunches up.“Eww.I did not need to hear that.”

Clarke finishes up with the stitches and places a gauze pad over the wound to keep it covered.“Done,” she says, and squeezes his shoulders, kisses the nape of his neck, and sighs.Octavia releases his hand, nods, and goes back to checking on the others.

Clarke sighs again.“We are never doing anything like this again.You’re gonna be lucky if I even let you out of my sight for the next week.A week in which you will be resting, and _not_ overly exerting yourself.Work will get done.We can take a few days, okay?Doctor’s orders.”Her hands come down from his shoulders and snake around his front, resting against his chest.One settles over his heart, pulsing with every beat.Her head rests against the back of his.

Bellamy raises a hand and places it on the one that covers his heart.He laces their fingers together, brings them to his mouth and kisses softly.“I’m okay with that.”

Clarke laughs.“Are you?Because I’m pretty sure you’ll be bored about two hours from now.”

He shakes his head, squeezes her hand tighter.“Clarke, all I want is to curl up in bed with you and sleep for a week.”

“Just sleep?” she whispers, and her breath is hot against his ear again.

“Well…maybe other things too.”

Clarke smiles.She’s home.Their friends are home. _He’s_ home.They may all be a little broken, but she’s confident they’ll make it through. 


	5. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy’s out on a supply run with Octavia, Miller, Raven, and Monty when they discover the cul-de-sac of abandoned homes. It’s inside one of those abandoned homes that he finds the ring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for so much love on the last chapter! I love you all!
> 
> ALSO GUYS WE'RE GETTING SEASON 5 FOR SURE AHHH SO HAPPY!!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but my feels.

In the three months since rescuing their friends from the mountain, things start changing at camp.The name is the first thing to go.Nobody has seen Jaha (or Murphy for that matter) since he wandered into camp months prior ranting about some kind of City of Light, and then wandered right back out.Camp Jaha becomes Arkadia, and everyone agrees it’s much more fitting.

With the radio signals free of disturbance, more members of the Ark are also discovered scattered within one hundred miles of camp.  They find the rest of the Factory station survivors as well as a faction of those from Mecha.  They try and get a lock on Farm station, knowing they’re out there somewhere, but it proves difficult.

Supply runs also become a thing of necessity.  They take medical supplies, food, clothing, anything worth scavenging from the remains of Mount Weather.  It’s the least the mountain can do after putting them all through hell.  They find the rovers there too, and Raven and Sinclair manage to get them in working order.

Bellamy’s out on a supply run with Octavia, Miller, Raven, and Monty when they discover the cul-de-sac of abandoned homes.  It’s inside one of those abandoned homes that he finds the ring.

He’s in an old bedroom looking for anything they can use.  Clothes and sheets and blankets that aren’t too moldy or moth-eaten aren’t top-of-the-list priority items like tools or weapons or tech, but Clarke had been stuck in medical and couldn’t join them on this run, so she had requested he take a look for some if he had the chance.

“Recyc is getting low on clothing, and honestly, I’d love a few more pillows and a thicker blanket for our bed.  Make it more comfy,” she’d said, sending him a sly smile.

He’d kissed her forehead and shouldered his rifle before jumping in the back of the Rover and shooting her one last smile.  “I’ll see what I can do.  Can’t have the princess uncomfortable at night.” 

There are blankets and pillows in the bedroom closet that are in pretty decent condition and he’s even found a handful of shirts and undergarments in the broken dresser.  The ring though…he wasn’t expecting to find anything like it.

It’s a pretty simple silver band with a small blue stone in the middle, flanked on each side by a smaller crystal clear diamond.  He’s kind of amazed at the condition it’s in.  He turns it in his palm, over and over, traces it’s lines, smiles.

It’s both delicate and sturdy. 

It survived a nuclear apocalypse. 

It’s so _very_ Clarke.

“A little small for you, huh Bell?”

Bellamy startles at the sound of Octavia peering over his shoulder and he nearly drops the ring.  She’s gotten so good at keeping her tread quiet and he hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than the small treasure in his hand.

“Jesus, O.  Warn a guy.”

“Sorry,” she says, coming around to stand in front of him.  She nods her head at his hand.  “Pretty.”

“Yeah.  It is.”

“Kinda surprised you found something like that.  I thought pre-apocalypse looters would have stolen any jewelry they could.”

“I guess diamonds aren’t really all that important when it’s the end of the world.”

Octavia nods and shoots her brother a smirk.  “So, you gonna give it to her?”

Bellamy pockets the ring, scoffs and pulls her into a headlock.  Octavia tries to squirm away but Bellamy’s hold is strong.  “That was the idea, yeah.”  She stops her squirming. 

“Wait, seriously?  Like, as a gift, or…”

“I’m going to ask her to marry me, Octavia.”  And he’s smiling when he says it.  Big and dopey and unlike anything she’s ever seen cross her brother’s face.  She gives him a shove hard enough to break the hold and then she’s wrapping her arms around his middle and hugging him instead.

“Good,” she whispers, and Bellamy feels his heart soar.  All he’s ever wanted is his sister, alive, and healthy, and happy, and safe.  But now he has Clarke too and she’s his whole _world_.  The two of them are.  And the fact that Octavia loves her too…yeah.  That makes Bellamy feel pretty good, to know he’s still capable of making good choices after every shitty thing he’s been through.

When they first got to the ground, he thought his mother would be appalled at the behavior he’d been exhibiting.  But now—now, he thinks she’d be pretty proud.

“Come on,” he says, dragging her from the room.  “Lets get this stuff home.”

—-

He finds himself taking the ring out often and just staring at it.  At night when he’s on guard duty in the tower, and she’s safely asleep in their bed.  In the early hours of the morning when he wakes, and she’s already gone, in the shower or off at medical.  Bellamy carries it with him everywhere, in his pack or pants pocket, not ever letting it out of his sight.  He thinks it’s because he already associates it with Clarke; a precious thing he can’t bear to part with. 

He’s just come off a guard shift and he’s exhausted when he gets back to the room he shares with Clarke.  She’s passed out in the bed, half on her side, half on his, and she’s got her face buried in his pillow, hair a wild tangle.  The blankets he’d found on the supply run are covering all but one foot, and he feels his chest tighten at the sight.  He will never, ever get tired of coming home to her.

He takes his boots off by the door and then strips out of his guard jacket and tactical pants, but not before he takes the ring from the pants pocket and places it in the small table drawer next to their bed.  He crawls into the softness of the blankets and scoops Clarke up, dislodging the hold she has on his pillow.

She makes a sound of displeasure, but doesn’t wake.  Bellamy smiles, and tugs her into his chest after getting situated amongst the blankets and pillows.  In her sleep, Clarke rubs her face against the softness of his shirt and sighs, content.  He runs a hand down her back and starts thinking about the ring in the drawer.

Bellamy’s had it for a few weeks now, and he doesn’t really know what he’s waiting for.  He knows Clarke.  She would never expect anything big or flashy, and he knows a public proposal wouldn’t really please her either.  He takes the ring out, stares at it.  He has the sudden urge to see it on her finger.

Her hand has come to rest on his stomach, and gently he lifts it into his own, careful not to wake her.  Her fingers are slight, graceful and strong.  There’s still a little dirt under her nails even after her washing for the night, and Bellamy thinks neither one of them will ever be truly clean, body or soul.  The ground is dirty and gritty and they scrape everyday to stay alive.

He places the sparkly circle of silver at the tip of her ring finger, pushes it slowly down, marvels at the fact that it’s a perfect fit.  Like it was meant for him to find; meant to be given to her.  He raises her hand to his lips, presses a kiss against the ring, lingers.

He feels the second her breathing changes from the evenness of sleep to the steady rise and fall of being awake.  Clarke’s eyes take in his face and then drift to her finger, no longer bare.  She smiles softly and presses a kiss to his chest.

“Is this your way of finally asking me?” she whispers.

Bellamy huffs a laugh.  “You knew?”

“I caught you starting at it last week.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“Nah,” she says, shaking her head and lifting up on her elbow, a quirk of smile on her lips.  She shifts so her face hovers over his, takes her newly ringed hand from his and strokes his cheek.  “I knew you would eventually, and I wanted it to be when you were ready.”

“Marry me, Clarke,” he whispers head tilting, lips pressing into her palm.  “Please.”

She smiles, leans down until her lips are ghosting over his.  “Yes,” she whispers, and leans down to press them to his own.  The kiss is lazy and loving and perfect.  His hand comes up and cradles the back of her head, holding her to him.  Her thumb continues to stroke his cheek  as their lips move together and the moment is everything he could have hoped it would be.

Clarke is going to be his wife.  His _wife_.  He’s never felt so lucky.

—-

Their wedding is simple, held on a beautiful evening at sundown in the grassy area they use for outdoor training.  Clarke finds a knee length, cap sleeve cream dress in recyc that came from one of the bunkers they scavenged, and Octavia does her hair half up, half down, braiding a crown from temple to temple across the back of Clarke’s head.  The rest falls in it’s normal wavy mess and it’s perfect.  Bellamy ends up in his normal tact pants and boots, but they do manage to find a somewhat white button down shirt that fits and lacks any holes. 

Kane officiates, Abby gives her away, and Raven stands at Clarke’s side while Octavia is at Bellamy’s.  The two laugh and make a show out of getting to walk down the aisle together.

Their vows are short, promising to love and protect each other for the rest of their lives.  Abby cries openly and Bellamy is pretty sure he hears stoic as ever Miller try to suppress a few tears as well.  They exchange rings that Raven made them from metal pieces of the dropship, and Bellamy thinks its a good representation of them, their start together.

Kane pronounces them married and Clarke is the one who surges up to kiss him as soon as the words leave the older man’s mouth.  Bellamy chuckles against her lips, but kisses back, smiling into it.  He breaks away at the hoots and hollers from their friends, and presses a kiss to her cheek, jaw, neck, ear.  He holds her close and whispers how much he loves her.

“I love you, too,” she says, and he notices the faint trail of happy tears on her cheeks.

There's a party afterward, the long tables in the mess hall full of smoked meats from the hunting party, as well as breads and cheeses, dried fruits and roasted vegetables.  And moonshine.  Lots and lots of Monty’s moonshine.

They dance into the night, with each other, with their friends, Clarke even shares a dance with Kane while Bellamy (somewhat uneasily) dances with her mother.  Eventually they come back together, swaying slowly to the soft sounds coming from Raven’s rigged up speakers. 

“Have I told you how beautiful you look?”  His voice is low against her ear, and Bellamy feels Clarke shiver against him. 

“Mmm,” she smiles, lips pressed against his neck.  “A few times.”  She draws back, looks into his eyes, rakes her fingers through the curls at the nape of his neck.  “But it doesn’t hurt to hear it again.”

“You,” he says, leaning down to kiss her.  “Clarke Griffin…Blake?” His eyebrow quirks and she smiles.  “My wife,” he says softly, and punctuates it with another kiss.  “Are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she says, leaning up to kiss him again.  “Do you think we’ve stuck around long enough?” she asks, a hint of mischief in her eyes, and he nods, grabbing her hands and dragging her from the room.

They race down the Ark hallways toward their quarters, fingers entwined, laughing and happy and acting like the kids they are but never get to be.  When they reach the door to their room, Bellamy pulls up short, bringing Clarke with him.

“What?” she asks, smiling, cheeks flushed.

“Come here,” he whispers, pulling her closer.

“What?” she asks again.  Bellamy leans down and scoops her up into his arms, cradling her close.  Her arms go around his neck and she laughs.  “What are you doing?”

“Carrying you over the threshold.”

Her brows scrunch together.  “Isn’t that kind of an antiquated tradition?”

“Very,” he says.  “Dates back to the Ancient Romans.”

Clarke smiles.  “You and your Romans,” she says, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

“Did you also know that they believed the ring finger was connected to the heart by a nerve?”

“Is that why you insisted on Raven making us the bands?”

He smiles.  “Maybe.  Or maybe I just like seeing it on your finger.  Then everyone knows you’re mine.”

“I think everyone on this fucked up planet is aware of that already,” she says, rolling her eyes.  But she smiles all the same, because yeah, she is his.  And he’s hers.  “Alright Roman caveman,” she whispers, leaning in close.  “Take me to bed.”

—-

It’s the first night in a long time they’ve had completely to themselves, without any interruptions from needy delinquents, late night work shifts, or any and everything else that could possibly require their attention.

The bed is a tangle of blankets and they’re both sweaty and sated, but Bellamy is nowhere near done showing Clarke just how much he loves her.  He makes her come three times, alternating between hands and mouth, before finally pushing inside and groaning.  Clarke echoes the sentiment and brings her legs up around him, cradling him close to her body, while her hands roam everywhere, down his back and up through his hair.  Bellamy’s thrust are slow, deep, and she’s so soft, so warm, he’s convinced this is how he dies.  In the arms of his wife, to the sounds of her gasps and moans and pants.

His fingers tangle in hers and press above her head while his lips are a low, rough whisper against ear.  “Do you know how much I love you, Clarke?  I love your laugh, your smile.  The way your brow crinkles when you’re mad at me.  I love the way you sound, fuck, the way you feel around me.”  His pace increases and Clarke moans, her legs tightening their hold.  Bellamy kisses up her jaw, to her cheek, across the bridge of her nose, down, down, down to her other ear.  He teases the lobe, nips at it gently.  “So much, Clarke.  So much.”

“I love,” she pants.  “Freckles.  On your face.  Like tiny stars…like home.”  She’s breathless and so, so close.  “You’re my home,” she whispers, eyes locked on his, and with one last hard thrust, they come together.

Their foreheads touch as their breathing calms.  Bellamy kisses her softly, releases her hands and brings his arms down and around her middle.  His mouth trails hotly from her own down to her neck, where he buries his face, breathing her in.  Clarke’s hands come up to run through his hair, holding him as close as possible.  He can feel her heart racing where it’s pressed against his chest, and the cool metal of her wedding rings against his scalp where her fingers caress.  He smiles against her neck, the happiest he’s ever been since landing on the ground.

“Fuck,” she breathes.  “Sometimes I think I could come from your voice alone.”

“Mmm,” his voice rumbles against her skin and she shivers.  Bellamy lifts his head to look down at her and smirks, his hands moving to rub softly against her hips and thighs.  “We could test that.”

“No,” she says, eyes closed, a strangled whiney laugh escaping.  “Not tonight.  I already feel like you’re trying to fuck me into a coma.”  Her voice is getting more tired, a little slurred from the euphoria.

He laughs softly.  “I just want tonight to be good.”

“It’s always good.  Perfect.”

He nods, forehead resting against her temple.  “It is.  But I also want you to sleep well.  Don’t think I didn’t notice you’ve been tossing and turning a lot lately.  Getting up in the middle of the night, sketching or reading until dawn.”

Clarke runs a hand lazily up and down his spine.  “So your answer is to have sex until I pass out?”

“Basically.  Is it working?”

She huffs a laugh.  “Maybe a little.”  She pauses a minute, and when she speaks, her voice is quite.  “When you’re here, and we fall asleep together, it’s better.  I don’t have the bad dreams.  Because I know, you’re next to me.  You’re safe.  I can reach out and touch you.  When you’re on shift, and I’m alone, my mind races, thinking about every possible terrible scenario that could happen, because I can’t see you.  Because I can’t protect you.  And I know it’s silly.  You’re in the guard tower, or patrolling the fence, and Miller is usually with you, and you know how to take care of yourself.  But I still worry.  With everything we’ve been through, it’s hard not to.”

“The downside to loving someone,” Bellamy says quietly.  “There’s a constant state of worry and panic over their wellbeing.  Every time you go outside the gates without me, armed or not, I worry.  Miller says I’m miserable to be around, and I don’t doubt it,” he chuckles and kisses her shoulder.  “I’ll talk to Kane about getting off the night shift, or at least cutting them back more.  Maybe he can sync them up with when you have night shifts in medical.”

She nods.  “That would definitely be more ideal.  Besides, we’re married now.  We deserve more time together.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”  He leans down and kisses her softly.  “So, you love my freckles, huh?”  He smirks and she shoves at his shoulder.

“It’s not like it’s breaking news.”

“I know,” he says. “But it doesn’t hurt to hear it again.”  He repeats her words from earlier in the night, holds her closer, nuzzles her neck and whispers into her soft skin.  “You’re my home, too.”


	6. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunted.
> 
> His wife is being hunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh thank you so much for all the kind words and support on the last chapter!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing but my typos.

Clarke wakes to the feel of a cold spot on the mattress, Bellamy’s heat already up and out of reach.He’s sitting on the end of the bed, putting on his boots and she remembers. 

Mapping run. 

It’s a week after their wedding and sadly the honeymoon is over.

She shifts out of the blankets and comes up behind him, arms wrapping around his shoulders and lips soft against his ear.  “Where are you going today?”

He grabs one of her hands, brings it to his lips and presses a kiss to the top.  “Sector 7.  Raven got a signal from an Ark beacon.  She thinks it might be Farm Station, and Miller is eager.  Hopeful.”

Clarke sighs and nods, getting up from the bed and moving to their small chest of clothes.  “Right.  Bryan.”  She grabs jeans, a gray shirt and fresh socks from the chest and starts to dress.  “Let me finish getting ready, and I’ll see you off.”  She wishes she could go with them, but medical has been extremely busy lately.  The onset of fall has started to bring about runny noses, and there’s usually always someone in need of stitches or getting a broken bone set.  Not to mention all the women looking to have their birth control implants removed, which just reminds her of another thing she wants to talk to him about.  Clarke’s nowhere near ready to have a baby but sometime in the future, she thinks, it would be nice to have a mini Bellamy running around.  The thought makes her smile as she laces up her boots and quickly moves to the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair.  When she comes back out, he’s got his guard jacket on, waiting for her at the door.

When they make it to the hangar bay, a problem makes itself present.

“Monty,” Bellamy says.  “What’s going on, why aren’t you guys ready?”  Miller is still loading supplies into the rover and Monty is trying to cajole an unconscious Jasper.

“ _We_ are,” Monty says, gesturing to himself and Miller.  “He’s not.”  He points to Jasper, passed out under a table.

“Maybe leave him this time?” Clarke suggests.  “I can take him to medical until he sobers up.”

Monty shakes his head.  “He needs this.  Getting outside for a while will do him some good, make him feel better.”

Bellamy sighs.  “Let’s get him up, then,”  he says, grabbing one of Jasper’s arms.  Monty takes the other and together they hoist the unconscious boy to his feet.

Out of the corner of her eye, Clarke sees the latest supply group start to unload their rover.  “Hey, you got this?”  She asks, placing a hand on Bellamy’s lower back.

“Yeah,” he nods as Jasper starts to stir.

Clarke makes her way over to the group, only to find Raven has already beat her there and is fully taking advantage of getting reacquainted with her girlfriend.  She gives them a few more moments and then clears her throat.  Raven and Gina break apart and turn toward her, Raven with a slight scowl and Gina with a smile.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Clarke says.

Raven rolls her eyes, but eventually softens.  “No you’re not,” she teases.

“Did the run go okay?” Clarke asks.

“Yeah,” Gina says.  “I really kinda hate that place, but, we brought back some good stuff.” 

Clarke understands the hatred for the mountain.  It’s creepy and desolate and horrific.  It brings back truly awful memories that Clarke already relives in her nightmares.  They’ve been making runs to Mount Weather for months and she knows there are still unearthed supplies there that could make a world of difference in Arkadia.  Clothes, books, medical supplies, they all linger, but she can’t be the one to go into the mountain and get them.  Not yet.  To Clarke, Gina and her group are a godsend.

“Did you get a chance to—”

Gina cuts her off with a nod.  “Good stuff,” she repeats.  “Including this.”  She hands Clarke an old battered book, and Clarke runs her fingers over the gold letters on the cover.  “You said he likes mythology, right?  Figured an anthology was a good place to start.”

“Yeah,” she says.  “His mom would read him all kinds of myths when he was a kid.  Thank you, Gina.  Bellamy’s gonna love this.”

“Love what?”  Bellamy says, coming up behind her and wrapping an arm around her waist.

She takes a deep breath and turns to face him, holding out the book.  “Love…this.”  Bellamy takes the book from her hands, gently running his own over it.  He’s quiet, and it makes Clarke a little nervous.  “You love myths and history,” she says.  “And books.  And I—I wanted to get you a wedding present.  You found the ring for me, and I know this isn’t quite the same, but—”  He cuts her off with a swift kiss.

“Clarke, you married me.  I think that kind of _is_ the present.  I don’t need anything else but you.”

“I—”

“But, I do love it,” he says softly, kissing her again.

“Well thank Gina too, she found it for me.”

Bellamy turns to Raven and Gina, a smile on his face.  “Thank you.  This is perfect.”

“Sure,” Gina nods.  “No big deal.  I had fun raiding their library.  There’s some more books in here too, somewhere…” she trails off, looking at all the boxes still being unloaded from their rover.

“I’ll have to check them out later.  Raven, you ready?  We really need to get going.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, tugging Gina into her for a proper goodbye.

Bellamy hands the book back to Clarke.  “Keep this safe for me?”

“As long as you keep yourself safe out there,” she says, leaning up to kiss him goodbye.

“Always,” he says, and makes his way into the front seat of the Rover.  Raven gets in the driver seat and starts the engine while Monty, Miller, and Jasper pile into the back.  The hangar bay doors open and daylight pours in, illuminating Octavia on horseback.

“Come on, losers.  We have shit to do!” she calls.

Bellamy chuckles.  “Alright Raven, take us out.”

—-

Hunted.

His wife is being _hunted._

He can’t breathe.

The words coming out of Indra’s mouth are unbelievable and insane.  An earlier run in with Ice Nation scouts (where Jasper almost got himself killed) had left him wondering who this _Wanheda_ they were tracking was, but never, ever, did he think it would be _Clarke_.

This day is really not going his way.

They’d had some luck when they happened upon Pike, Bryan, Monty’s mother, and various other members of Farm station, but after sending them on their way with Miller back to Arkadia, everything started to turn sour.

He’s moving back toward the Rover and the radio before he can fully grasp what this means.  He just knows he needs to make sure she’s safe, back at camp where he left her. 

“Rover 1 to Arkadia, come in.”

“Rover 1, this is Arkadia.”

“Raven.”

“Hey.  If you’re just checking in, we made it back fine.  Abby says Jasper’s gonna be ok, too.  Well,” she pauses. “At least, his neck will be.  Not too sure about the rest of him.  What did Kane want?  Are you guys coming back soon, because you have _got_ to see Miller, Bellamy.  I’ve never seen him so happy, and honestly it’s freaking me out a little—” 

“Raven,” he cuts her off sharply.  “Where’s Clarke?”

“Uh, getting ready to head out with Abby, I think.  Nyko showed up, and he’s pretty sick.  They need to treat him at Mount Weather.  It’s risky, especially since we’re already on not so great terms with the grounders, but Lincoln said it’s worth it.”

His heart seizes and his whole body turns to ice.  No.  She can’t leave Arkadia, not when people are looking for her.  Not when they want her dead.

“I need you to keep her inside the gates.”

“What?  Why?”  He can hear the skepticism in her voice.

“We’re headed back now, I’ll explain everything when we’re home.  Just, please, Raven.  Keep her inside.”  He’s pleading, too far away and desperate to keep Clarke safe.

“Yeah,” Raven says.  “Yeah, okay.”

He lets out a long breath.  “Thank you.  We’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll watch her back ‘til then.”

—-

Clarke’s finishing loading supplies into Rover 2 when Raven finds her.

“You can’t go to Mount Weather.  Send Jackson with your mom instead.”

“Trust me when I say Mount Weather is the last place I want to go, but mom needs help, and we can’t treat Nyko here.  We don’t have the equipment.”

“Bellamy just radioed from meeting with Kane and Indra and he asked me to keep you here.”

“Why?”

Raven shrugs.  “He just said keep you inside.”

Clarke huffs a laugh.  “He’s my husband, Raven, but he doesn’t get to make choices for me.  So unless there’s a reason, I need to get going.  Nyko’s in pretty bad shape.”

“Clarke,” Raven says, reaching out to grab her arm.  Her eyes are pleading.  “I get that, okay.  I do.  I am _all_ for that.  But Bellamy sounded pretty desperate, so maybe, just this once, do what he wants?  He said they’d be back soon, and he’d explain.  I think maybe he got some bad news from Kane.”

Clarke feels her heart sink.  If Bellamy got bad news, she wants to be here to comfort him.  She doesn’t want to make him wait hours for her to come home, or jump back in the rover and chase her to the mountain.  And really, if she thinks about it, while she wants to learn from her mother, Jackson’s experience does make him the better choice to assist Abby in this situation.

She nods.  “Okay.  Fine.  I’ll stay here.”

She gets her answer an hour later when the rover rolls back into Arkadia.  She’s outside pulling medicinal herbs from the garden Monty planted when she sees the rover stop abruptly and Bellamy jump out.  His face looks stricken as he makes his way over to her.  Clarke rubs the dirt from her hands against her jeans as she stands and meets him.  His arms come around her like a vice and she makes an oomph noise as his face drops to the crook of her neck.

“You stayed,” he says, voice muffled.

She nods against him, one hand coming up to rest against the back of his neck, the other threading through his hair.  “Bellamy, what’s going on?  What happened?”

He pulls back, drags her hands down to hold in his own.  “Let’s go inside, huh?”

She takes her hands back, cups his face instead, gets him to look her right in the eye.  “Bellamy.  _What_ is happening?  Why are you so spooked?”

He swallows hard and reaches up to hold on to her wrists, keeping her hands in place on his face, the feel of her keeping him centered.  “Indra said Ice Nation is hunting you.  They think you’re _Wanheda_.  She said it means ‘Commander of Death.’”

Clarke’s face scrunches up.  “What?  I—Because of the mountain?”

He nods.  “The Ice Nation queen, she believes if you kill someone, you gain their power.  And by gaining the power she thinks you have as Wanheda, she’d be able to command death, break Lexa’s coalition, and start a war with the other clans.  So please, Clarke,”  his voice is rough, wrecked.  “Please let me take you inside.”

“We’re already behind the gates, Bell.  We’re safe here.  We have been for months.”

“I know that, but anything could happen, Clarke.”  He leans down and kisses her softly.  “Please.”

“You can’t expect me to stay inside the Ark forever.”  He kisses her again, a little harder, and when he pulls away, she has to take a moment to catch her breath.  “You also can’t just get what you want by kissing me senseless.”

“I’m aware,” he smiles.  “Just thought it was worth a try.”

She rolls her eyes, but smiles.  Her husband is over protective, and yeah, she is too, but honestly, hearing that a whole nation of people want her dead because of some crazy myth they believe is a little scary, so today she’ll give him what he wants.  But tomorrow they’re coming up with a solid plan on how to combat this, because she is not cowering in Arkadia for the rest of her life.  “Okay,” she says. “Lets go inside.”

—-

Bellamy is on guard duty a few days later, up in the right tower, when a visitor at the gates brings about a commotion.

It’s a grounder, that much he’s sure of, but the facial marking are different than any he’s seen before.  Instead of black tattooed lines, this man has a face covered in carved scars.  He wears furs for warmth and Bellamy notices there are four different sized smaller blades hanging from his belt and a long sward strapped to his back.  He’s pretty sure the man probably has more hidden in his boots or under his cloak as well.

David Miller is on duty with him and Bellamy notices he’s already got his rifle trained on the grounder.

“Hold,” Bellamy says quietly, before turning to look down at their visitor.  “State your purpose,” he yells.

The grounder holds up both hands, a signal of peace, and quite the contrast to his arsenal of weapons.  “I wish to speak to Bellamy and Clarke kom Skaikru.”

Bellamy checks his rifle, even though he knows it’s fully loaded, and makes his way down the tower.  He notices Monty is up in the left tower, and the rest of his guards are taking formation on the ground.  Miller and Bryan take the left while Monroe and Harper are on the right.  When he gets to the bottom, Clarke is already there waiting.

“Let’s see what he wants,” she says.

Bellamy feels better about opening the gates to this stranger with so many of his most trusted standing by, but he’s still not fond of the situation.  “Just…stay behind me, please?  We have no idea who this is, what clan he belongs to, or what he wants.”

She nods, and Bellamy turns back to David in the guard tower.  “Open the gates!”  As soon as the gate are open, Bellamy has his rifle trained on the grounder.  “You have our attention.  Who are you, and what do you want?”

“I’m Prince Roan, of Azgeda.”

“Ice nation,” Clarke whispers.

Bellamy backs up into her, blocking more of her body with his own, the rifle never wavering, and Clarke has to grab his waist to steady herself from falling over.  “Clarke, I think you should go back inside the Ark.  Miller?”

“Like hell,” she hisses.

Miller seems to waffle, gaze shifting between Bellamy and Clarke, determining which of the two he fears the wrath of more.  Clarke shoots Miller a death glare and shakes her head.  “Uh, yeah.  I’m gonna have to pass on that.  She seems pretty adamant about staying.”

“I’m not hiding, Bellamy.  You aren’t taking care of this for me.  Besides,” she takes in Roan’s hands, open in their gesture of peace, eyes his belt of knives.  “He’s…kind of unarmed.”

The prince takes a step forward and more guns rise from the remaining members of the guard.  “You have no need to worry, Bellamy kom Skaikru.  I’m not here to take Wanheda forcefully.”

“Really?Because from what I’ve heard, your queen is the one who wants her dead.”

“I can assure you, I do not agree with my mother’s superstitions or practices and therefore I am not here on her behalf.”

“Then why?” Clarke asks, coming to stand beside Bellamy. 

“The commander sent me to inform you of a peace summit taking place in Polis in three days time.  She would like you in attendance Wanheda, and requested that I escort you.  She also knows that it is unlikely you’ll travel anywhere without him,” he nods at Bellamy.  “And has requested his attendance as well.”

“Lexa betrayed us.  Why would I go anywhere near her peace summit?” Clarke asks.

“She wishes to make Skaikru the 13th clan.  An official member of the coalition.”

“Your mother wants war.  She wants the coalition destroyed,” Bellamy says.

“And as I said, I do not agree with my mother’s practices or wishes, and neither does Heda.”  He takes another step forward.

“Take one more step toward my wife and I won’t hesitate to shoot.”

“Enough,” another voice calls out, and while Bellamy refuses to take his eyes off of Roan, Clarke turns to see Kane approaching.  “Indra has already informed us of the summit, and Abby and I will be attending to represent Skaikru.”

Roan nods.  “You are more than welcome to attend, but Heda has made it clear she wants Wanheda to be there as well.”

“ _Heda_ doesn’t get what she wants,” Bellamy sneers.  “She left us to die.”

Roan is haughty when he responds.  “She says she can protect Clarke in Polis.”

Bellamy knows Roan is just taunting him, trying to engage him in a battle that will only bring destruction to his people.  If he kills this grounder prince, it’ll bring about a war they’re trying so hard to prevent.  It doesn’t matter that Roan doesn't agree with the Ice Queen, his death at the hands of Skaikru can only bring treachery.  Clarke grabs his arm before he can do something stupid. 

“What did she offer you?” Clarke asks softly.  Her hand falls away from Bellamy’s arm, and she takes a step forward, shrugs.  “Nothing comes without a price, and even Lexa has to pay.”

Roan chuckles.  “Smart.  Heda said you were smart.  She has made me a deal, you’re correct about that.”

“So you bring me to Polis, and then what?  What did she promise you?”

“Freedom,” he says.  “The freedom that comes with taking my crown.  My entire life my mother has held me down, belittled me and our people.  She is a cruel ruler, and Azgeda deserves better.  That starts with me.”

“Lexa is offering to kill the queen,” Bellamy deduces. 

“Yes,” Roan says.  “She’s offering to do what I cannot.  If I commit the act myself, it will be seen as treason, and my people will never follow my lead.  Heda has ways of making things happen…quietly.”

“She’ll never honor it,” Clarke says.  “It doesn’t matter if I come with you or not, Lexa only cares about herself and what’s best for her.”

“Avoiding war will be best for her and the coalition.  She knows that. _I_ can give her that.”

“She won’t see it that way.  Lexa will see a replacement of power as more of a risk than dealing with the enemy she already knows.  It’s exactly what she did to us.  She twists things, makes you think you’re a part of something, aligned.  But she has all the power to destroy.  She made me send him into the mountain,” she gestures toward Bellamy.  “She wanted to let a bomb drop on TonDC and _not_ warn the villagers.  She abandoned us when we needed her, and she’ll do the same to you.”  Clarke takes a step back, toward her people.  Toward her husband.  Toward _safety_.  “You can tell Lexa I don’t need her protection.  This is my home, and I’m just fine here.”  She turns toward Bellamy and nods.

“Close the gates,” he calls.

Roan laughs.  “Do you really think you’re safe here?  You’re not exactly hiding!”  He gestures toward the Ark, the giant hunk of scrap metal they call home, proudly standing tall and unhidden.  “If I can find you, anyone can.  It won’t be long until my mother sends her own scouts.”  The gates continue to close, but Roan is not deterred from his yelling.  “You _will_ regret this.  She’s cunning, my mother.  Whatever she has planned, you’ll never see it coming!”

The gates come to a complete close and Bellamy feels all the breath leave his body in one huge exhale of relief.  His gun falls to his side, and he turns, gathers Clarke in his arms, and holds her close.  She returns the hold fiercely, tight.  “It’s okay,” she whispers.  “We’re okay.”  His head nods against her and she burrows closer, face pressed into his neck.  She doesn’t care about the crowd of people still milling around, and he doesn’t either. 

This is them, providing comfort. 

Holding, listening, feeling.

“We’re safe here,” she says, and he prays that she’s right.

—-

In the end, Roan was the one whose prediction reigned victorious. 

They _don’t_ see it coming.

The Ark remains safe, untouched, but the mountain ends up destroyed in a blistering heat of fire and rage.

Bellamy is in Polis.

Why, _why_ is he in Polis? 

Why did he trust _her_? 

Why didn’t he stay with Clarke?

Bellamy is in Polis under a guise Echo provided, and Raven is yelling over the radio, and he’s never been more terrified in his life.

He took Clarke to the mountain with Octavia, Raven and Sinclair to get out of camp for a while.  Gina had talked up the library and Clarke remembered all the pre end-of-the-world art that the mountain had harvested.  It was enough to finally coax her into facing her nightmares and reenter the mountain.  Plus, Bellamy would be there.  He’d hold her hand and they’d face it together.

They’d been trying to get Farm station settled in, gather a few supplies, and get out and get back to camp before nightfall.  But then Echo had shown up and declared the summit a trap, both grounder and Arker alike in attendance at risk of dying by the hands of an assassin.  He’d left Clarke behind to work with the engineers on getting the launch codes for the missiles hidden within the depths of the mountain.  They were a last resort, a worst case scenario.  They were an evil something neither of them wanted to rely on, but.  Sometimes evil is necessary when trying to survive.

Echo helped save his life in the mountain, once, and he felt like he owed her. 

He trusted her words.

He followed her to Polis, his sister and Pike at his side.

He left Clarke in the mountain.  He thought she’d be _safe_.

He will _never_ make that mistake again.

“Say again, Raven?”His voice cracks and he winces.

“The grounders attacked Mount Weather.  It’s gone,” she cries.  “They’re all gone.”

“Clarke?” he chokes.

She takes a shuddering breath that makes the radio crackle.  “She’s here, I’ve got her.  The blast knocked her out, but she’s alive.  She and I and Sinclair.  We’re the only ones left.”

—-

Bellamy gets back to Arkadia in the early hours of the morning, darkness not yet giving way to dawn.  He passes through the gates, through the hangar bay, past the bar where he sees Gina holding a sooty, disheveled Raven, stroking her hair and offering what little comfort she can.

His fingers itch for Clarke.  For the feel of her warm skin and her steady heartbeat, because despite his idiocy, her heart _is_ still beating, and he will forever owe Raven for watching her back and getting her out.

He checks medical first and Jackson informs him that he checked Clarke over and she’s fine.  The blast made her lose consciousness, but it wasn’t for long, and she didn’t have a concussion.  She was lucky, just some cuts and bruises, a little spilled blood.  All stuff that could be easily treated.

Somehow, he thinks the same can’t be said about the new nightmares this will surely induce.

When he gets to their room, she’s sitting on the edge of the bed, feet and legs bare, save a bandage on her left knee, and adorned only in one of his spare t-shirts. 

She looks so small.

He wants to lock the door and shut the world off from them and never leave.

Clarke stands, winces a little, and Bellamy notices the pain cross her features, radiate down her back, cause her to stumble as she steps toward him.  He’s across the room in an instant, catching her hands in his as she falls into him.

“I’m okay,” she says.

“No.”  The word is choked, a mangled sound on his lips.  “You’re not.”

“I am,” she insists.  “Just some bruises.  A little soreness.”

“Clarke—”

“No,” she says, shaking her head.  She pulls back, turns him, and pushes him down to sit on the bed.  She occupies the space between his legs, and his arms come around her waist, forehead pressing into her stomach.  Clarke rakes a hand through his hair, soft, soothing, comforting, and Bellamy can barely stand it, now that he’s here.  Now that he’s seen what he’s done to her.

“I don’t deserve this,” he whispers.  “It’s my fault, I don’t—”

“No,” she repeats, stronger, more resolute.  She will not let him blame himself for this.  He will _not_ be his own punching bag.  “This is not your fault, Bellamy, and don’t you dare try and convince me it is.”

“I trusted her,” he says.  “I trusted her and I left, and I couldn’t keep you safe, Clarke.  I couldn’t keep you safe.”  Its a mantra for him, he repeats it over and over into the thin, worn fabric of his shirt she wears, and he feels the tears sting his eyes, roll down his cheeks, soak into her.  She clutches him tighter, and he knows she feels them too.

_I couldn’t keep you safe._

It’ll haunt him forever.

“If you’d been there,” she starts.  “Then you might not be _here_ , now.  We can’t play what-ifs, Bellamy.  Echo tricked you.  She tricked us all.  Nobody in that mountain thought for a second she might be lying, but she was.  We lost too many people.  But Raven is still here.  Sinclair too.  _I_ am still here, Bellamy.  I’m here with you, and we’ll get through this together, just like everything else.”

“If I’d lost you, Clarke…”

“You didn’t.  And you won’t.”  She grabs his left hand, brings it to her mouth, kisses his ring finger, the cool metal a contrast against her blistered lips.  “You never will.”

He looks up at her, sees the hope and determination in her eyes, and he believes.  Clarke’s never lied to him, not once, and he knows she doesn’t plan on starting now.

He rises to his feet, brushes back her hair with his free hand, and kisses her forehead, lingers for a moment, then moves down, down, down, fusing his lips to hers. 

They’re married, yet sometimes he feels like he will never deserve her. 

But the thought is fleeting, menial at it’s core.  He’s too damned selfish to ever give her up.

“I’m a fuck-up,” he whispers.  “But you love me anyway.”

“I do,” she says.  “It was in the vows.”  He chuckles, kisses her again.  “Now say you love me, and let’s go to bed.”  She gives him a soft smile and he complies. 

He would deny her nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes writing is really difficult and things don't always initially come out how we want, and it takes stepping away for a few days or a few weeks and plotting with a pen on paper to work it all out.
> 
> The middle section of this chapter was not working for the longest time, but I think I finally got it how I wanted.
> 
> So I hope you enjoy and leave a comment if you so desire! :)


	7. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Whatever you have to do, do it. You know I will forgive you anything"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're all so kind and wonderful!! Thank you for the love and support!

“Pike’s turning into a problem.”

Clarke is in their room putting away laundry when Bellamy enters.  It’s been a week since the attack on Mount Weather and her body is still a little sore from the blast.  As far as she knows, Kane and her mother are still dealing with alliance negotiations in Polis, and in _her_ first free hour of the day not spent sleeping or eating, she’s _putting away laundry._

It’s completely ridiculous. 

It’s too normal.

It’s _weird_.

But she can always count on Bellamy to bring a problem that needs solving.  She likes being domestic from time to time, but honestly she’s glad for the interruption.  The focus of fixing a problem brings about a nice distraction from thinking about everything they’ve lost. 

Every _one._

“Hi, wife,” she says, lowering her voice to a bad imitation of his.  “How’s your day been?”

He shoots her a glare, arms crossed against his chest.  “I don’t sound like that.”

“No?” She smirks.

He rolls his eyes and steps further into the room, right up next to where she stands at the end of their bed.  He takes in the few sparse piles of their clothes mixed together.  Their lives represented in something as simple as cotton and thread.  Bellamy tugs her into his arms, and hers wrap around him in return.  He lowers his voice to a husky gravel and places his lips against her ear.  “No.”

She shivers, tightening her hold on him, and presses a quick kiss to his neck before pulling back just a little.  “Why is Pike a problem?”

Bellamy pushes a stray lock of golden hair behind her ear, brushes a thumb across her cheek.  “He’s making some pretty bad accusations about the grounders and insinuating that he wants to do some pretty fucked up shit.”

“Like what?”

“Kane and your mom just got back about an hour ago, and I overheard them talking with Pike.  Kane says he accepted Lexa’s offer, so now Skaikru is the 13th clan of the coalition.  Lexa sent a grounder army of 300 to protect us from Ice Nation, but Pike doesn’t trust it.  He’s talking about a genocide, Clarke.  He wants to kill the entire army before they turn on us.”

—-

“We need to warn them,” Clarke says.

They’re gathered in engineering, Bellamy, Clarke, Kane, Abby, Miller, Raven, and Octavia.  It’s quiet, Raven has a light over the door rigged to turn on when anyone approaches, and there’s a camera and video screen set up to see the outer hallway from all angles.  It’s the perfect place for rebel minds to meet.

“How?”  Miller asks.  “Pike’s got followers already, and eyes everywhere.”

“Pike’s not chancellor,” Bellamy says.  “And he doesn’t control the guard.  Both of those positions belong to people in this room.”

“I’m not going to be chancellor much longer,” Abby says.  “We’re having an election in the next few days.  I can do more good in medical, and the people should have a say in who leads them.”

“So we’ll elect Kane,” Raven says.  “He’s the most logical choice.”  She points to Kane’s bandaged arm.  “The grounders seem to trust you.  They gave you that collation brand.”

“I’ll be on the ballot,” Kane says.  “But that doesn’t guarantee anything.  If there are people willing to nominate Pike, democracy says we have to honor that and make him an option.”

“Then we need to act fast,” Bellamy says.

Kane nods.  “Indra is with the army.”

Octavia, who has been restless and pacing, stops in her tracks.  “Does she still have the radio?”

Kane nods again, but Clarke cuts him off before he can speak.  “She won’t listen to us.  Heed the warning, maybe.  But she’ll need a direct command from Lexa to pull back.”

Miller crosses his arms, takes a step forward.  “Sounds like someone has to go to Polis.”

Clarke nods.  “I’ll pack a bag and go.  She wanted me there for the summit, so she must still trust my opinion on some level.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Bellamy—”

“Ice Nation still wants you dead, and you’re just barely not limping anymore.”

“It’s 300 lives,” she says quietly.  “Someone has to warn them, and they can’t leave.” She jerks her head at Kane and Abby.  “Not with all this unrest.  And _we_ trust the rest of the people in this room, but will Lexa?  When we made that alliance, she only wanted to speak to me.  I have to be the one to go.”

Bellamy stands from the chair he’s been sitting in, walks to Clarke, grabs her hands.  “Fine.  Then I’ll go with you.”

Her eyes slip closed, steeling for what she knows she has to say to him.  She squeezes his hand, and when her eyes open, she takes in his expression, downcast and worried.  He already knows the blow she’s about to deliver.

“I want you to,” she whispers.  “But I _need_ you to stay here.  I—” She takes a deep breath, swallows.  “How do you feel about playing the inside man again?”

Bellamy's brows furrow.  “You think it’s necessary?”

“Pike is unpredictable.  Maybe…maybe you make him think you agree with him.  Become his right hand man, get him to trust you.”

“We form a resistance,” Kane says.

Clarke nods.  “Yes.  We have to assume the worst.  If Pike becomes Chancellor—”

“Friends close,” Raven says, gesturing to the room.  “Enemies closer.”  She looks at Bellamy.  “You’re persuasive.  People listen to you, the Dropship days are proof of that.  If you’re in Pike’s ear, you can sway him to maybe make some less drastic choices.”

“Worst case scenario, Pike _does_ win, and we plant someone to get intel from him.  Maybe I am persuasive, maybe he’ll listen to me.  But how do we convince him I’m more willing to side with his logic?  My sister is in love with a grounder, my wife is making alliances with them.  Anyone with a brain can see from a mile away what I believe and who I’m loyal to.”

“If I leave,” Clarke starts.  “You act like you don’t know where I went, or how long I’ll be gone.  You—you act…angry?  Unsure?  Lost?”

He scoffs, runs a hand through the back of his hair.  “Not really much acting needed there.”

“Bellamy.”

“I know,” He says.  “I know.  Has to be done.”

She thinks about the words he said to her what feels like a lifetime ago.  She’d needed them at the time.  He needs them now.  “Who we are, and who we need to be to survive…”

“Yeah,” he nods.“Very different things.”

“The last place I want to be right now is Polis.  But we can’t risk a war with the grounders.  We have to save that army.”

“Okay.  I’ll do everything I can to get Pike to trust me, tell me all his secrets.  But we meet back here to strategize periodically.  Raven, can you make a few of the radio channels private, so we can communicate without him knowing?”

Raven glares.  “Duh.”

“Then I guess we have the makings of a plan.”

“Who else do we include?”  Miller asks.  “It’s better to keep this small, less chance of anyone breaking or leaking information.”

“Jasper doesn’t need to know,” Bellamy says.  “He’s not really in the best state to prove useful.”

“What about Monty, Harper, and Lincoln?  Bryan, Gina?  You want us to lie to them?”

“Kinda hard when you’re sleeping together,” Octavia interjects.

“We tell who we need to tell as we go along,” Kane says.  “We wait and see how the vote goes, and base it off of that.”

“I should leave soon, then,” Clarke says.  “Tonight.”

Bellamy looks displeased about the whole thing.  He’s logical, and sees that it’s their best option, but Clarke knows he still hates this plan.  It’s how she felt when we wanted to leave for the mountain.  “How are you getting there?” He asks.  “Azgeda is hunting, and you can’t take a Rover.”

“I have Helios.  I can get her there safely, Bell,” Octavia says.

Kane stands.  “And I have a way out of the Ark where nobody will see a thing.”

They all disband, and Clarke and Octavia agree to pack and meet back up in Kane’s office in an hour. 

When they’re back in their room, Bellamy sits on the edge of the bed and Clarke packs her bag, keeping it sparse, taking only the necessities.  A few shirts, an extra pair of pants.  Some socks and underwear.  She assumes there will be soap and a place to wash in Polis, so she leaves their toiletries for Bellamy.

He watches her quietly, eyes never leaving her form.  She hates this as much as he does, and the looming separation gnaws at her insides.  She closes up her pack and moves to stand in front of him.  Her hands come to rest on his shoulders and she brings her legs up and onto the bed, straddling his lap.  Bellamy’s arms go around her and he lays back, taking Clarke with him.

She nuzzles into his neck, presses one, two, three kisses.  His arms tighten around her and he sighs.  “You said we were never doing this again.”  She remembers patching him up in medical after returning from Mount Weather.  Stitching up his back and swearing they weren’t separating for anything.  “Bad things happen when we’re separated,” he says, voice low and soft. 

He’s scared.   

She doesn’t want to go back on her statement from months ago, but.  Their people need to be kept safe, and this is the first step.  “Not this time,” she says, strong and assuring.  “Something good will come out of it.”

“Promise?”

She nods. 

Hopes. 

_Believes._

She will never lie to him. 

This _will_ work.

_—-_

They make their walk to Kane’s office hand-in-hand, Clarke’s bag slung across her back.  They’ve almost made it when the voice rings out, and oh, God, no. 

They were so close.

“Blake!”  Pike’s booming voice stops them in their tracks, and when they turn to face him, he’s right there, not even ten feet away.  “Or should I says Blakes?” he chuckles.

“Sir,” Bellamy says.

“Where are you two headed?” he asks, eyeing Clarke’s pack.

But Clarke is quick on her feet, slinging her bag around and lifting the flap to show him the inside.  She’s never been so happy to only be carrying clothes in her pack.  “Laundry,” she says, shrugging and putting on her most innocent, love stricken voice.  “We like doing domestic things together, right babe?”  It’s weird.  She’s never, ever called him ‘babe,’ but she’d read a lot of fluffy romance novels and watched some cheesy old vids during free time on the Ark.  She’s pretty sure this term of endearment, while not natural to anyone who really knows them, is perfect to use in front of Pike to play up the situation.  She smiles up at Bellamy, squeezes his hand, her eyes telling him to play along.

He smiles, bring her hand up to his lips.  “Anything to spend time with you.”

“Well I hate to the break this up,” Pike says.  “But I was hoping we could talk.”  He looks pointedly at Bellamy.  “The election is coming up, and I’m hearing whisperings of a victory in my favor.  I’d like to discuss an opportunity for your future.  You were such a bright student, Mr. Blake.  You have the skills to survive, and I think we could be of great benefit to each other.”  Clarke cannot believe what she’s hearing.  Pike’s playing into their hands already and thinking he’s masterminding the whole thing.  “I’m sure your missus can handle the laundry on her own, hm?”

That part kind of rubs her the wrong way, but she’s willing to let it slide for the sake of their plan.  She wants a chance to properly say goodbye to Bellamy, especially with not knowing how long this mission to Polis will take, but sometimes it’s better to play the hand you’re dealt instead of getting too risky and losing it all.

“I sure can,” she says, smiling brightly, and turning to Bellamy.  “You should go, entertain any potential opportunities for improving our future.”  And he knows what she really means by those words.

_You should go, start wheedling as much info out of him as you can._

Bellamy nods. “Sounds great.” 

Pike turns to go and once he’s got his back to them and a big enough distance between them, Clarke hugs Bellamy tightly, lips pressed against his ear.  She speaks so softly, she’s sure he’s the only one who can hear.  “Whatever you have to do, do it.  You know I will forgive you anything.  Always, Bellamy.  _Always._   I love you no matter what.”

He swallows hard, nodding against her.  “I love you too, no matter what.”  He kisses her, fierce and fast and dizzying.  “Stay safe.”

“Stay safe,” she repeats.

“Blake!”  Pike’s at the end of the hallway, turned back toward them.  “Let’s go!”

He backs away from Clarke, their arms loosening, falling far, far away from each other.  “Sorry,” he says.  “Newlyweds.  You know how it is.”

Pike chuckles.  “You’ll see her again tonight.”

Bellamy almost laughs.  In his dreams, maybe.  But she won’t be warm and safe in their bed, and that nearly breaks him.

—-

The journey takes two days by horse, and it’s long and tiring.  They take breaks when they can, stopping at ponds for Helios to drink, and making camp in high grass that provides cover.  They make a water stop outside a trading post, and Octavia wastes no time making her opinion known.

“My brother is risking a lot for this, you know.  Going to Pike, putting himself in the line of fire.  He’s doing a lot to protect you.  What are you doing to make sure he stays safe, because you turn up missing when it’s clear Ice Nation wants you dead, and that just adds more fuel to Pike’s fire. Not to mention Bellamy is the first person that’s going to be questioned seeing as he barely lets you out of his sight anymore.”

Clarke stares at the vast landscape surrounding them, the little hut for trading, the dirt and stone. She toes at the ground, pets Helios.  She tries a million different things to take her mind off the fact that she had to leave and that puts him in danger.  She knows Bellamy is risking a lot.  She feels it break every piece of her heart and darken the lining of her soul.  Her most beloved, walking into the belly of the best _again_ , because she asked him to.

“I left a note,” she says.  “I made it seem like I needed time, some quiet after the explosion, just for a few days.  To process guilt and reflect, I guess.  I made sure to include you and cover our tracks, and Bellamy knows how to play his part.  We take care of each other, but we also know how to take care of ourselves.  I promise I will never let any harm come to him again, Octavia.  Not when I can do something to stop it.”

Octavia sizes her up.  They’re sisters now, and they both love Bellamy fiercely.  Clarke could make a sly dig if she wanted.  She could remind Octavia how many times Bellamy has sacrificed himself and his safety for her sake.  Clarke could remind her of all the times she’s turned her back on her brother out of her own stubbornness. 

But Clarke won’t do that. 

She’s _smarter_ than that.

A fight with her new sister is the last thing they need right now.

Together is better, especially amongst family.

Octavia nods, and grips Helios’s saddle, slinging herself back on the horse.  She reaches her hand down and Clarke grips it before swinging herself back up as well.  “Then lets keep moving.  The faster we get this done, the faster we get home.”

Clarke couldn’t agree more.

Home.

She wants to be back home more than anything.

—

When they arrive in Polis on the second day, the sun is just beginning to set, its warm glow dimming.  It makes sense, seeing as Clarke and Octavia don’t receive the warmest of welcomes from the grounders.  Kane had relayed that Lexa made it clear Skaikru was a member of the coalition now, but the looks they’re receiving make it obvious to Clarke that there are still plenty of people who are distrusting of them.

It helps that Octavia’s Trigedasleng is so strong.  Clarke knows a few words and some important phrases, but she’s no where near Octavia’s fluency.  Several members of Lexa’s guard are present at the bottom of the tower and Octavia explains that they require an audience with the Commander.  Clarke hears her utter the word ‘Wanheda’ and it causes a shiver to race down her spine.  She doesn’t want to be the Commander of Death, but if the title will get them to Lexa faster, she’ll embrace it.

It works. 

Lexa’s guard bring them up, up, up the long elevator ride to the throne room at the top of the tower.  To say she’s surprised to see Clarke and Octavia step out of the elevator when the doors open is an understatement.  There’s a look of shock across her normally hardened features as her eyes slide back and forth between them.

“You need to call back your army,” Clarke says.  Gesturing to herself and Octavia, she continues.  “ _We_ appreciate it, but there are people in our camp who want to see them dead.”

Lexa swallows.“Explain.”

And they do.

Lexa listens, and in the end agrees.  Clarke can tell she’s apologetic about what happened to their alliance at the gates of Mount Weather, and that Lexa sees the strain her decision has placed on the friendship she and Clarke could have developed.  Clarke doesn’t think she can forgive her, not 100 percent, but.  It’s a start.

Lexa uses the radio they’ve brought, and they’re able to hail Indra and have her disband the troops, pack them up, and send the warriors back to their homes.

It’s later into the night when Lexa has her advisor, Titus, show Clarke and Octavia to their rooms.  It’s too late to start traveling back to Arkadia, and Helios seems to barely be able to make it to a stable for the night, let alone the long trip home.  He’s exhausted from the fast pace of their journey to the grounder capital, and frankly, Clarke is too.  Her body is weary, and after Titus vacates the room, door shutting softly behind him, she collapses on the bed.

It’s nice, all furs and soft pillows and a cushy mattress.

There’s no Bellamy though.  There’s no fighting over who hogs the blankets more.  There’s no body heat and strong arms and trailing fingers.  There’s no intimacy or safety that comes from the feeling of her husband next to her.

She tries to call him on the radio, but it’s silent.  She tosses and turns, over and over. 

The night carries on, and just when she finally starts to feel the heavy hands of sleep pull her under, the radio crackles to life.

“Clarke?”

She grabs for it blindly, bringing it to her lips to respond.  “Bell?”

“I’m here.”

She sighs, deep and heavy.  “I tried to radio earlier, and you didn’t answer.”

“I got a little held up.  They don’t really give you radio access in lockup.”

She’s quiet for a moment.  “What?”

“Pike wanted to move on the army, and I tried to convince him it would only create more problems.  Kane did too, but he wasn’t hearing any of it.  He wanted to go after them in the night, so they wouldn't see it coming.  I figured this was a good place to start inserting myself, so I used the note you left to play along.  An award winning performance, really.  You should have seen it.  A lot of confusion and swearing.  You got me really worked up, Princess.”  She laughs softly.  “I told Kane what we were planning, had him head us off at the gate, but Pike still turned it into a spectacle. Kane put us in one of the bigger skybox cells until after the election.”

“I’m guessing since we’re speaking, the election happened?”

Bellamy huffs.  “Conveniently after Pike’s rallying call to arms.”

“And?”

“Well, it’s a good thing we have a contingency plan, because all of Pike’s bullshit got him elected.”

She’s quiet again, and her silence says everything.

“Yeah.  His new position worked to get us out of the cell, and I’m pretty sure he trusts me implicitly, but we’re still not looking at the greatest situation here, Clarke.”

“Well at least if he gathers people to go after the grounder army again, he’ll find nothing but an open field.”

“You got through to Lexa?  She called them back?”

“Yes.  See?  I told you something good would come of this.”

“I miss you,” he says softly.  “The Clarke-shaped spot on the bed is cold.”  She can hear the rustling he makes as he rolls over and smoothes down the place in their bed where she belongs.

She smiles at that.  “Lexa gave Octavia and I our own rooms, and this bed is decent, lots of blankets and pillows, but I still can’t sleep.”

“Picky Princess,” he jokes.

“Haha,” she says.  “I don’t just miss our bed, dummy.  I miss the person that comes with it.”

“Octavia’s in her own room?”

“Yes,” she drawls.

“So you’re alone then?” he asks, and his voice makes her whole body warm.  If only she was home.

“Bellamy.  I love you, but I am not having radio sex with you while I’m in a tower surrounded by grounders and your sister.  Not to mention the fact that anyone could stumble across this channel, no matter how good Raven is at keeping it hidden.”

He chuckles.  “Fair.  When are you coming home?”

She sighs, rubs a hand tiredly over her face.  “We’re leaving as soon as possible.  Hopefully tomorrow.”

“Good, because Pike’s not our only issue.  Jaha wandered back in again, and he’s still spewing nonsense about the City of Light.”

“Great,” she huffs.  “It should blow over though, right?  Last time he showed up, everyone brushed him off.”

“I think it’s different this time.  People are believing him, Clarke.  He’s offering them something, and they’re acting different, brainwashed.”

“Who? My mom?”

“No, not her.  But Raven…Clarke, I think Raven did something stupid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment if you so desire! I love hearing your thoughts and opinions!


	8. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If you touch him, I will kill you,” she says, deathly quiet. The monster smirks, and Clarke doesn’t care that she’s riled up and giving ALIE exactly what she wants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for the love on the last chapter, you're all too kind. I'm sorry this one took so long, I was prepping for a big job interview, but I finally got it finished!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

When Clarke sees him again, it’s not the day after she radios from her room, high up in the tower.

Or the next.

Or the next.

Or the _next_.

When she and Octavia finally make their way out of Polis, it’s only to find a mob of angry Arkadians led by her mother waiting for them at the front gates.  It takes Octavia all of two seconds to pull on Helios’s reins and begin their retreat.  They get about ten feet away from the gates when Rover 1 crashes through.

Clarke can see that Jasper is behind the wheel, which partially explains the erratic driving.  He leans out the window and yells “Follow me if you wanna live!” which would normally make Clarke laugh, because that’s just Jasper, cracking jokes and quoting old videos, but she’s so exhausted and out of the loop about what’s been going on at camp, that she just clings to Octavia tighter as she snaps the reins and Helios takes off after the Rover.

They’d lost radio contact a few days prior and all she can think about is Bellamy and what must be racing through his mind; if he assumes they’re dead.  Missing a hail on the radio is one thing, but failing to return home when scheduled to is even worse.  She’s hoping if anything, they follow Jasper and he leads them to Bellamy, to Lincoln, to Raven, to someone who can tell them what the hell is going on.

She gets her wish when Jasper slows the Rover to a stop outside a cave near the old dropship camp, and he’s _there_ , standing guard under a sky full of stars.  He snaps to attention, rifle rising when he hears the crunch of feet on forest floor and the Rover door slamming shut. 

Octavia notices him too, and yells his name.  She dismounts from the horse and then reaches a hand up to help Clarke down as well.  Bellamy walks into the stream of brightness from the Rover’s headlights and then Clarke sees his whole face and she has to stifle a sob.  Once again they’ve been apart for too long and once again, she finds him with cuts and bruises littering his face and God only knows where else.

Bellamy takes them both in, riffle dropping to his side, a look of disbelief stretching across his marred face.  Clarke can’t stop staring at him, can’t make her feet stop feeling like lead, can’t force them to propel her toward him, so it’s not surprising that Octavia moves first, arms wrapping around her brother in a bone-crunching hug.  Bellamy hugs her back, but he can’t stop looking over her shoulder.  Can’t stop looking at Clarke.

A figure appears in the cave’s entrance, and then, softly, “Octavia?”

Octavia pulls back from her bother when she hears it.  “Lincoln?”  She takes a step forward, stops, looks at Bellamy.  “I—Clarke will fill you in.”  And then she’s gone, moving fast toward the mouth of the cave and having a reunion of her own.

“Bellamy,” Clarke says softly, and then they’re both finally, _finally_ moving.  They come together in a clash and everything feels right again, even if only for a moment.  Bellamy’s got his face pressed into the crook of her neck, height difference be damned, and her arms come up, clutching him tighter.  Her hand stops at the nape of his neck, fingers caressing softly.   “You were right,” she whispers.  “Bad things happen when we’re separated.”

He pulls back, dragging her more into the light, getting a better look.  Her hands and fingers are stained with what looks like the remnants of watery black paint.  It’s in the lines of her palms, lodged under her ragged fingernails.  There’s even a smudge of it across her jaw.  Bellamy raises a hand, cups her cheek, carefully, so, so, carefully and turns her head to inspect more closely.  He’s so gentle, and the past two weeks that she’s spent away from him have been anything but.  She bites her lip to keep from crying.  His eyes roam over every bit of her before finally speaking, voice hoarse.  “What happened?”

She gestures to his face.  “I could ask you the same.  At least this blood isn’t mine,” she says, holding up her hands.

“That’s blood?”

“ _Night_ blood,” she clarifies.  “The grounders born with it are trained to be the commander.”  His brow furrows, like he’s working through something, processing her words until the puzzle pieces fit and the picture becomes clear.

“Is that—”

She nods.  “It’s Lexa’s,” Clarke says quietly.  “She’s dead.”  Everything had happened so fast, just the night before, and she tells Bellamy as much.  Titus had grabbed her gun, pointed it at her, blamed her for Lexa’s newfound softness.  He’d called her a distraction and a bad influence, and said her ideas and morals were messing with their way of life. 

She doesn’t know what possessed Lexa to do it.  She was in the doorway and then suddenly she was in front of Clarke, taking the bullet for her. 

They were starting to see eye-to-eye.

They were starting to build a friendship.

They were starting to form a _real_ alliance between their people.

And then she was choking on her own nightblood as it bubbled up in her throat and Titus was trying to rectify what he’d done and everything, everything, _everything_ was chaos.

Clarke tried to stop the bleeding, yelled for Octavia who came running, pleaded for Lexa to stay alive.  Her people loved her.  Her people _needed_ her.  She had killed the Ice Queen in a fierce battle and made the newly crowned King Roan swear he wouldn’t move against Clarke or Arkadia.  She had promised to keep Skaikru safe, and this time Clarke actually believed her.

But she couldn’t save her, and before she realized what was happening, Titus was cutting the small little square out of the back of Lexa’s head and giving it to Clarke for safe keeping.  She hadn’t even had time to clean Lexa’s blood from her hands before Titus was rushing them out of the tower and into the Flamekeeper’s sanctuary where they traveled through the secret tunnels out of the city.

“I—That’s—” Bellamy doesn’t know what to say, so he just pulls her back into his arms, holding her tightly.  Clarke nods, forehead brushing against his jaw.  “Fuck,” he whispers.

“Uh, guys?” Jasper interrupts.  “I’m all for a mom and dad reunion, but maybe catch up later?  I could use a little help getting her inside before she wakes up and figures out where we are.”  Clarke turns toward Jasper and her eyes widen when she realizes he’s trying to pull an unconscious Raven from the back of the Rover.

They move quickly and Bellamy hauls Raven the rest of the way out, carrying her into the cave, Clarke and Jasper on his heels.  Their entire inner circle awaits them inside.  Octavia is catching up with Lincoln, while Monty, Harper, Bryan, Miller, and Sinclair make room for Bellamy to set Raven down.

Jasper is filling in Clarke and Octavia on Jaha and the chip and ALIE when it becomes obvious that the cave isn’t going to work for long. 

“Do the chips look like this?” Clarke asks, pulling the small square, the flame, she reminds herself, out of her pocket.  It’s still caked in black Nightblood.  She hadn’t had time to wash it either.  The symbol on the front is clear enough, though, and Jasper nods. 

“Kind of, yeah.  But not exactly.  The symbol is the same.”

If Raven isn’t Raven anymore, if she’s done something stupid, as Bellamy suspected and Jasper has confirmed, Clarke can only assume it’s the flame’s presence that causes her to wake so abruptly.  “There it is,” she says.  “Version two of my program.  Go, find out where you are.  Now!”

She tries to make a run for it, but Bellamy and Jasper are there to grab her.  She fights against them, kicking and screaming and thrashing like a wild animal.  She snaps her teeth at Bellamy, tries to take a bite out of his shoulder, but he dodges her advances and quickly gets the upper hand, turning her arms behind her back.

“Dammit Raven,” he grumbles.

“She’s not Raven right now, that’s ALIE taking control,” Jasper says.  “She’s trying to figure out where we are so she and all her chipped minions can come for her.”  Bellamy gets full control over Raven and it allows Jasper time to root around in his bag.  “Got it,” he mumbles, pulling a syringe from its depths.  Raven fights harder as he closes in with the needle, but Bellamy’s hold is strong.  Jasper jabs the needle into her neck and after a few seconds she goes lax, unconscious and no longer an imminent threat.

“We can’t keep her here much longer,” Sinclair says.   

“No shit,” Jasper says.  “That was the last reaper stick.”

“So where do we go?” Miller asks.

Jasper shakes his head.  “I don’t know.  I was trying to help her before everything went to shit and ALIE made her slit her own wrists.  We were gonna get that crazy bitch out of her head, but, well,” he gestures at Clarke and Octavia.  “You two showed up and saw how insane it got.”

“So let’s help her now,” Clarke says.  “What do we need to do?”

“She was working on something, _building_ something, I don’t know.  She needed one of our old wristbands from the drop, but Jaha figured out what we were doing and destroyed them all.”

They’re all quiet for a moment, until the lightbulb goes off in Clarke’s head and she remembers.  “No,” she says.  “He didn’t.”  She and Octavia lock eyes, and then at the same time, they speak.  “The trading post.”

—-

Between the rover and the horse, they still don’t all fit comfortably for the journey to the trading post Octavia and Clarke had stopped at on their way to Polis, so Miller, Harper, and Bryan stay behind while the rest head out.

It takes some convincing, but eventually Niylah, the trading post’s owner, gives them the wristband she’s been wearing and allows them use of her back room.  They quickly, despite her struggling, get Raven tied to a bed, but it doesn’t take long for ALIE to make her try and kill herself.  Again. 

“We need to get that thing out, _now_.” Clarke says.  “What was she working on?”

“An EMP,” Sinclair says.  “She was going to generate one with the wristband.  It’s genius, really.”

“It’s _Raven._ ”

Sinclair nods.  “The EMP could easily destroy the chip’s circuits.  I think it’s worth a try.”

“Will it hurt her?” Lincoln asks.

“EMP’s don’t affect our bodies, but I have no idea how the chips work with her brain.  There could be lasting effects.”

“This was Raven’s plan,” Bellamy says.  “And she’d never go through with it if it would wreck her brain.”

“Either way, we need an electromagnet to make this work.”

“Where do we get one?” Octavia asks.  “Arkadia?”

“No way,” Monty says.  “It’s crawling with chipped people.  We use the dropship, it has the same kind of pulse inductive thrusters as the ARK, and those will have the magnet.  I’ll go and salvage one, Sinclair you stay with Raven and figure out how to make it all work.”

“I’ll go with you,” Octavia says, brandishing her sword.  “Can’t hurt to have a bodyguard while you’re digging around in the wires.”

“I’ll go as well,” Lincoln says, and with that, the three exit the trading post.

Clarke sighs, watching them go.  “We’re going to have to take turns watching her, make sure she doesn’t try and hurt herself again.”

“Give me the technology you carry, and I’ll let her go.”  It’s weird, Clarke thinks, to hear Raven so monotone, so robotic.  She knows it’s ALIE speaking through Raven, but still.  It’s unsettling that technology, something Raven thrives in and adores, is destroying her so easily.

“No,” Clarke says, and Raven starts to thrash against her restraints.  “And if you let her die, you will _never_ get it.”  She calms immediately, but sends a sneer in Clarke’s direction.  “I’ll take first watch.”

“Are you sure?” Bellamy asks.  “When’s the last time you slept?”  She can’t really remember the last time she got a real night’s sleep.  Probably the last time they were together, before she left for Polis.  She knows he’s taking in the dark circles under her eyes and she wants nothing more that to go curl up with him somewhere and sleep for days, but they have more important things to worry about. 

Clarke grabs his hands, smiles softly.  “I’m okay,” she says.  “I’ve got this for a while.”

He nods, kisses her temple, squeezes her hands.  “Call when you’re ready to switch.”

“Okay.”

Bellamy nods once more and backs away.  “Come on Jasper, maybe we can help Sinclair.”

—-

The Raven/ALIE hybrid won’t stop staring at her, so Clarke stares right back.  She cocks her head to the right, and she stares.  She cocks her head to the left, and she stares.  She rakes her eyes up and down Clarke, taking in her relaxed posture as she sits in an armchair across the room, hands folded across her stomach. 

“What?”  Clarke finally asks.

“Do you ever see their faces?” Raven asks, and Clarke’s brow furrows slightly.  “You know, the ones of all the people you’ve killed?”

Clarke takes a deep breath, reminds herself that this isn’t really Raven.  It’s just a _thing_ , wearing Raven’s skin.  “I know what you’re trying to do, ALIE, and it’s not going to work.  You can’t get to me.”

ALIE forces Raven’s mouth into a smirk.  “Can’t I?” Her eyes drift to the doorway and Clarke is hesitant, but her own follow.  She can seem Bellamy in the front room, pacing back and forth while Sinclair tinkers with the wristband and Jasper dozes in the corner.  “You’ll be the death of him,” she sneers, and Clarke’s eyes shoot back to the bed, zeroing in on the creature tied to the headboard.

“Shut up.”

“Just like Wells.  Just like Lexa.  Just like your father.”

“I said shut up!”

“Your mom is in here with me, you know.  It was so easy, getting her to take the chip.  All I had to do was threaten Raven’s life, and she complied to my demands.”  Her eyes flick to Bellamy again.  “I could do the same to him.  How quickly would he comply if I were to threaten your life?  His sister’s life?  How much fun could I have taking control of his mind, bending his will to my command?”

“A little hard right now, seeing as you’re tied to a bed.”

“You forget that I have so many now.  When I figure out where I am, they will all come, and they will tear you apart, piece by piece, while I make him watch until he begs for a chip to stop the pain.”

Clarke learned from an early age to be humble and caring and put others first.  To know that even though she came from privilege, she was not the most important person in the world.  But Clarke also knows that aside from Octavia, she _is_ the most important person in Bellamy’s world, just as he’s the most important person in hers.  It’s part of being married.

It’s one thing for ALIE to threaten _her_ , to poke and prod and pick at her insecurities and her faults and her choices.  But to threaten Bellamy, to go after her husband…she loves him more than anything, it’s not something she can hide, nor would she want to, so she has no problem letting her rage flow.

“If you touch him, I will kill you,” she says, deathly quiet.  The monster smirks, and Clarke doesn’t care that she’s riled up and giving ALIE exactly what she wants.  She gets up from her chair, moving closer to the bed, voice rising louder and louder.  “Do you hear me?  I don’t care whose skin you’re wearing, I will fry your ass!”  She’s shaking, chest heaving, breath coming quick and sharp.  It’s only when Bellamy enters and gently tugs on her arm that she begins to calm down. 

“Hey, hey,” he says.  “It’s okay.  Let’s take a breather, huh?”  He pulls her from the back room, into the front, sits her down in the closest chair and takes a seat directly across from her.  As she gets a handle on her breathing, Clarke can see from the corner of her eye that Jasper has taken over ALIE watch and she thanks the Gods that she finally gets a moment alone with Bellamy.  She doesn’t know where Niylah has gone, and she doesn’t really count the fact that Sinclair is still technically in the room.  He’s too enthralled in figuring out how to build the EMP.

“I let her get to me,” she whispers, and Bellamy drags his chair closer to hers, their knees almost touching.  He grabs her hands, engulfing them in his own, rubbing gently as they hang between them.

“Maybe a little,” he teases.  “You’re usually better at keeping your cool.”

“Yeah, well, she threatened you.”

“Clarke—”

“She’s in Raven’s head and my mother’s, and so many others that know us and see us day in and day out, and I know, I _know_ that she’s taking every low blow she can, poking at every fear and insecurity, and normally I wouldn’t care.  I would shrug it off and move on, but,” she pauses, taking a shaky breath.  “I guess you’re my breaking point.  You’re the best part of my life, and you make me happier than anything else.  You’re the one thing that I have truly gotten right, and we make each other stronger, I will always believe that.  But just the thought of something happening to you,” she huffs.  “It makes me a little insane.”

He smiles softly, leans forward, places a lingering kiss on her forehead.  “Trust me princess, the feeling is mutual.”

She takes him in, the dim light of the trading post making his skin glow faintly.  The cuts are still there.  So are the bruises.  Something _did_ happen to him.  “I promised your sister I wouldn't let anything happen to you, and look at your face…what happened to your face, Bellamy?”

“You said whatever I had to do, right?”

“Bell—”

“I made sure Pike trusted me.  Took my ring off,” he says, pulling a chain from the collar of his shirt.  His wedding ring hangs from the middle, and Clarke can’t believe that she’s been holding his hands for ten minutes and completely missed the fact that the feel of dropship metal has been absent against her skin.  “Some members of Trikru came to us, looking for medical attention, and I put them in a cell because it made people feel more comfortable.  I gave Pike false intel, and I acted…harsh, when I had to.”  He swallows, huffs a small, quiet laugh.  “But he figured it out when I refused to let him execute Lincoln for what he thought of as treason.  I guess this was my punishment,” he says, pointing at his face.  “He likes to use his fists to make a point, and I guess I can’t really blame him.  The earth is harsh and cruel and he’s always preached survival by any means necessary, even back on the Ark.  I’ve been there, we all have, but,” he shrugs.  “We can’t just kill someone for being different than us or having an opposing opinion, and I wasn’t going to let him make an example out of Lincoln.  My sister…she’d never forgive me, and I’d never forgive myself.” 

She notices how he doesn’t include her in that statement, and she knows why.  She told him as much.  It doesn’t matter that they both have a hard time forgiving themselves.  She would forgive him anything, and she knows he would do the same for her.

Clarke takes the chain, still dangling from his fingers and unclasps it, removing his ring.  She slides it back on his finger, brings his hand to her lips, and when she places a kiss against it, she swears she hears him sign in relief.

“You saved Lincoln’s life.”

“Barely.”

She sighs, taking a look around the room, observing all the junk that’s been collected over the years, and she’s suddenly aware that two people have been missing since they met up at the cave.  “Where’s Kane?  And Gina?”

“I’d imagine Kane is in Polis by now.”  Her brows furrow and he nods.  “Kane and I got Lincoln out of Arkadia and down to the cave.  Kane stayed with him and I went back to draw Pike out.  That’s when he started figuring things out, and I got these,”  he says, pointing to his face again.  “Miller’s dad stopped him before it could get any worse than this, and convinced him that I could still be an ally.  I could be loyal.  What Pike didn’t know was that we’d brought David Miller into the fold not long after you left.  So he plays it up, tells me if I just take Pike to the cave, let him deal with Lincoln, we can pretend I never betrayed him and he never tried to beat my face in.  I agree, we get him out of camp, and then we proceed to lead him straight into grounder territory where Kane is waiting with Indra and five of her best warriors.”

“You turned him over to the grounders.”

He nods.  “He tried to kill three hundred of their people.  Let them decide what to do with him.”

“And Gina?  There’s no way she wouldn’t want to be with Raven.”

“From what I can tell, they took the chip together, and she’s still back there with the rest of them.”

“Why would they do that?  What could Jaha possibly have said to get them to agree?”

“Your mom started to limit Raven’s workload, because her leg has been pretty bad lately.  Jaha said it could take the pain away, and I guess that was enough for her.  For both of them.”

“Did he try and get you to take it?”

“Of course he did.  I told him to fuck off.”

“You didn’t want some magic pill fixing all your pain?”

“I don’t need a magic pill, Clarke.  I have you.”

She grins and leans forward, kissing him fierce and quick. 

It’s not long after that Monty, Octavia, and Lincoln return with the magnet.  Monty is deathly pale and shaking as he hands it to Sinclair. 

“Monty, what happened?” Clarke asks.

“I—”  He presses a fist to his mouth, and his eyes flutter closed for a moment as he tries to gain control of his tremors.  He turns and races back outside and a moment later the sounds of retching grace their ears.

Lincoln goes to check on him and Octavia sighs, strangely weary from their short trip.  “He just had to shoot his mother.”

The room goes silent, cold and dejected as the reality of the situation begins to set in. 

Their friends.

Their _families_.

ALIE’s reach has no limits, and unless they can figure out a way to stop her, they’re all fucked.

Clarke’s hand reaches into her pocket, fingers lightly grazing the small square object.  The _flame_.  This…this is the key.  It has to be, why else would ALIE want it so badly?

And Raven…Raven’s been connected to ALIE for weeks. 

Raven knows everything ALIE is planning. 

 _Raven_ will know how to make all the pieces fit.

“Sinclair,” Clarke says.  “Please tell me you figured out how to get that EMP working.”

“I had to do a little rewiring, but yeah.  It’s good to go.”

“Then let’s get to work.  It’s time to get Raven back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I hoped you enjoyed! Feel free to drop a comment, I love hearing from you guys.


	9. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Start with Bellamy Blake.”
> 
> The words make her nauseous, and Clarke struggles against the bonds and the contraption her mother put her in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi hi! Thank you thank you for the love on the last chapter!! I'm sorry this took so long, but I was having a little bit of a writers block while also settling into a new job.
> 
> BUT HERE IT IS! 
> 
> This is the last chapter, and it's extra long. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

“Start with Bellamy Blake.”

The words make her nauseous, and Clarke struggles against the bonds and the contraption her mother, _her mother_ , put her in.

Everything is wrong, so, so wrong.  This isn’t how the plan was supposed to go down.

When the EMP worked and ALIE left Raven’s mind, everything was supposed to shift.  They had their best and brightest back and she had inside information about ALIE’s endgame.

She had infiltrated Polis.

She had overtaken the grounders.

She was using Ontari, and controlling the throne.

“But I think we can stop her,” Raven had rasped, voice rough and tired from the hell ALIE put her through.  “I can get to her through her own programming.  I have all the keys and passcodes now,” she said, tapping the side of her head.  “But we still need someone on the inside.”

“When you say inside…” Bellamy said.

“I mean inside the city.”

“How?” Clarke had asked.  “If one of us takes the chip, ALIE has all the control.”

Raven had simply nodded at the small, dinged up tin in Clarke’s hand.  “Use the flame.”  And then she’d uttered a phrase in what Clarke thought might have been Latin and the tin started shaking within her grasp.

“What the—”

“I just woke it up,” Raven smirked.

“How?”

“ALIE may have been in my head, but I was also in hers.  I took the liberty to do a little digging around in her code when she thought she was fully in control.  She’s got so many chipped to oversee now, she didn’t notice when my brain would wander and start poking around in hers.  The only problem is that the flame only works with nightblood.  If you try and take it without, it’ll kill you.”

“No,” Bellamy said.  “You’re not putting that thing in your head, Clarke.  You’re not sacrificing yourself.  We’ll find another way.”

“Bell—”

“We can get you nightblood, Clarke,” Raven said.  “And then it’ll work.”

Clarke shook her head.  “We don’t have another nightblood, Lexa is dead, and Ontari killed—” her breath hitched at the memory of Ontari on the throne, holding Aden’s bloody head, the screams that came from finding the rest of the potential commanders, the _children,_ dead in their beds.

“So we use Ontari herself.  Well, her blood, anyway.”

“A transfusion,” Sinclair said.  “We have the equipment, we took it from Mount Weather before…”

“There’s enough of a charge left to use the EMP on one more person,” Raven said, looking over the device, poking and prodding and giving it one last inspection before handing it to Clarke.  “Use it on Abby, she can perform the transfusion, and you can go into the City of Light.  I’ll be out here guiding you the whole way.”

Clarke had nodded, because if there was one person other than Bellamy that she could easily put all her trust in, it was Raven and her ginormous brain.

And so after trekking back to Arkadia for the transfusion equipment, Clarke and Bellamy had taken Octavia and Lincoln with them to Polis while Raven, Sinclair, and the rest of their rag tag crew stayed behind to use ALIE’s tech against her.

Stumbling upon Prince Roan again on the road to Polis was supposed to be to their advantage.  He’d been willing to work with them to get Clarke into the throne room while Bellamy, Octavia, and Lincoln would make the long climb up the elevator shaft, but even that had gone wrong.

Clarke had still ended up in her intended destination, but the chipped grounders had seen through their plan.  They knew she wasn’t really Roan’s prisoner, and for that he’d taken a shot to the shoulder and been dragged off God only knows where. She’d been taken to the top of the tower and thrown down on the throne room floor next to what appeared to be an already dead Ontari.  Then her mother’s familiar hands had strapped her into some sort of torture device and the smile that Abby would always give her twisted into a mocking sneer.

“What’s the matter, Clarke?” Abby asks, and it breaks her from her not so blissful reverie.  “Finally realize he’s your biggest weakness?”  She struggles again against her restraints, and she has to remind herself this is ALIE talking.  It’s _not_ her mother. 

“Please,” Clarke says.  “Please don’t—”

The doors to the throne room are thrust open and then two grounders are shoving Bellamy to his knees, hands tied behind his back, and Clarke has to stifle a sob.  This is her worst nightmare come true.  This is her putting him in danger, again and again and _again_.

“I can see why you would choose this one,” ALIE says, and Clarke watches the monster wearing her mother’s face stalk toward her husband.  “He is quite nice to look at.  Strong too.”  She grabs a fist full of his hair, tugging it back until his neck is exposed, and then there’s a knife to his throat.

Clarke’s heart stops and her whole body goes cold.

“I’ll bet he bleeds like all the rest.”

“No, please,” Clarke begs.  “It doesn’t have to be this way, you don’t have to do this.”

“No,” ALIE sneers.  “ _You_ don’t have to _make_ me do this.  Just give me the passphrase for version two of my program and I’ll let him go.  I’ll let you both go.”

“Clarke, she’s lying,” Bellamy says.  “Don’t give her what she wants.  Don’t sacrifice the rest of the world, I’m not worth that.”

But he is.  To her, he is.  He’s worth everything.

She shakes her head, tears freely running down her cheeks.  “I can’t let you die.  I can't do any of this without you, Bellamy, I don’t want to.”

Bellamy swallows, and Clarke can see the corded muscles of his neck move against the blade.  “You can, princess.”

“No,” she whimpers.  “No.  If we were reversed right now, you would never let me ask you to do the same.  You wouldn’t let me die.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.  I’m a selfish asshole, Clarke, but you’ve always been stronger than me.”

“Tick tock,” ALIE sing-songs.  “You’re running out of time, Clarke, and I’m getting impatient.”  ALIE makes a small nick with the knife and Bellamy lets out a grunt of pain as blood trickles slowly from the wound.  ALIE laughs and the sound burns even more coming from her mother’s lips.  “What was it you said you’d do to me if I ever touched him?  Fry my ass?  And look at you now.  All bound up and nowhere to go.”  She waves the knife in Clarke’s direction before bringing it back to Bellamy’s throat and making another small nick.

“Stop!” Clarke yells.  “Please, stop.  I’ll tell you.  I’ll tell you the passphrase, just stop hurting him!”

“Clarke, no,” Bellamy pleads.

“I have to,” she whispers.  “I can’t watch you die.”  She turns her gaze back to ALIE, mouth opening, ready to end it all with her words.  Anything, as long as Bellamy is safe.

A loud crashing stops her lips from forming the words as the elevator doors open to reveal John Murphy and a carriage full of dead grounders.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, raising his gun and taking out the last two standing grounders in the throne room.  The disturbance is enough to distract ALIE and Bellamy takes the opportunity to roll away, far, far out of her grasp.  “And,” Murphy winces, “Sorry about this, Dr. Griffin.”  He raises his other hand and Clarke recognizes one of the electric prods the Ark guardsmen carry.  Murphy strikes, and Abby’s body falls to the ground, limp and unmoving, but Clarke knows the loss of consciousness won’t last long.  The electric current is strong, but it’s nowhere near the strength of the EMP.

“Untie his hands, and get me out of this thing,” Clarke says, nodding toward Bellamy.

Murphy’s on him quickly, taking the knife ALIE had been brandishing and using it to slice through the ropes binding Bellamy’s hands. 

Bellamy’s on his feet as soon as his hands are free, moving as fast as he can toward Clarke.  He gets the straps on her arms and legs unbuckled in what must be a record pace and then he’s hauling Clarke into his arms, smothering his own face in her neck and squeezing the life our of her.

“Your neck,” she squeaks, holding him just as tightly. 

“ _Your_ neck,” he says, pulling back to look her over, and Clarke remembers her own wounds, the small bloody marks at the base of her neck that ALIE gifted her with.

“I’m okay,” she rasps.  “You—”

“Also okay,” he says.  “We’ve got bigger issues right now.”

Clarke nods, gaze drifting toward Murphy who’s hovering near Ontari’s body.

“Does she have a pulse?” Clarke asks, and Murphy gives her a quizzical look.

“Who cares?” he asks.  “She killed a bunch of kids and kept me chained up in a tomb while ALIE chipped my girlfriend.”

“We need her nightblood,” Bellamy says.

Murphy rolls his eyes, but still he bends down and checks Ontari for any signs of life.  He lets out a small huff as he rises back to his feet. “She’s got a pulse, but it’s weak.”

“Grab my bag,” Clarke says, and Bellamy goes for her discarded pack laying in the corner of the room, while Clarke goes for her mother, propping up her unconscious body, smoothing the hair off the back of her neck.  When she turns back to Bellamy, he’s already ahead of her, hand outstretched offering the EMP device.  She gives him a small smile as she takes it and attaches it to the back of Abby’s neck.

Clarke triggers the device sending the last of the EMP through Abby’s body.  She grabs the knife too, making a small puncture in the back of Abby’s neck for the liquid silver of the chip to drain out.  She tapes up the wound with a small piece of gauze from her med kit and just as she’s pressing the last corner into place, her mother comes to with a gasp.

—-

“Clarke, this is madness,”  Abby says, but still she goes about prepping both Clarke and Ontari’s nearly lifeless body for the blood transfusion.

Clarke is sitting on the throne, forearm upturned, the needle for the IV already embedded in her skin.  She’s watching everyone around her.  Octavia and Lincoln made it up the elevator shaft with a surprising Pike in tow, and Clarke’s pretty sure Bellamy is already planning twelve ways to keep his sister from doing something stupid.  They’ve started barricading the doors and windows, weapons at the ready in case any chipped grounder makes it through.

“Has to be done, mom.  There’s no other way.”

“And you’re okay with this?”  Abby ask, gaze shifting to Bellamy.

“Fuck no,” he answers.  “But she’s right.  It has to be done.”

Clarke notices him looking over every crack and crevasse in the room, scanning all their entrances and exits, strategizing the best way to keep out unwanted parties.  They’re going to keep her as safe as possible while she’s inside the City of Light.  She knows Bellamy will settle for nothing less.

Abby finishes setting up the IV and then Clarke is connected to Ontari through a series of rubber tubes and needles.  Bellamy takes her free hand, interlacing their fingers. 

“Ready?” she asks.

“Are _you_ ready?”

“No,” she says quietly.  “But—I wanna go home.  I want this to be over.  I want our life back.”

Bellamy smiles, weak and sad.  “This is our life, princess.  End of the world, near death experiences are kind of our thing.”

“We had a good three months,” Clarke huffs.  “Things were quiet.  _That’s_ our life.  _That’s_ what I want to go back to.”

He leans forward, forehead coming to rest on hers.  “Okay,” he says softly.  “That’s our life.  And when you come back out we’ll go home or we’ll make a new home somewhere else or just—whatever the hell you want, Clarke.  I will go wherever you want and give you whatever you want.  Just—” he breaks off, voice rough and full of emotion. 

He’s nervous.

He’s terrified.

He can’t bear to think of her getting trapped inside her own mind, lost in miles and miles of ALIE’s code.

Clarke squeezes his hand.  “I know.  I’ll come home to you, just like you came home to me.”

“You had to rescue me from a cage, Clarke.”

She removes her hand from his, trailing it up to rest on his cheek.  “Doesn’t matter, you still came home.  We find each other, always.”  She swallows down the lump in her throat.  Tries and tries and tries to hold back the tears that are hovering just behind her eyes.  “Together, always.”

He repeats the words.  “Together, always.”  And then he kisses her soundly, pouring every ounce of love and protection and trust into the simple press of lips against lips.  When he pulls back, she chases him with her own lips, begging for one more touch, one more feel, one more minute of him and her and nothing and nobody else.

When it’s over, Clarke turns to face her mother who’s been conversing with Murphy about how to keep Ontari’s heart beating and her blood flowing.

“Okay,” she says.  “I’m ready.”

—-

The City of Light is nothing like she thought it’d be.  In fact, it’s not even a city at all.  She’s surrounded by sunshine, lush wide open green fields, and smack dab in the middle, there’s a two story cabin with a wrap-around porch, and a small well of water off to the side.  It’s…beautiful, and magical, and like something straight out of Clarke’s dreams.  She spins in a circle, taking in everything, and yeah.  There’s nothing here but this gorgeous home and the grassy fields and the forrest of trees far off in the distance.  When she turns back to the cabin, there’s a little boy standing on the porch, and then he’s yelling for her, running toward her, and—

“Momma!”

Her whole body seizes in shock.

“Momma, momma!”

He’s still running, still running, still running, and then—

The little boy crashes into her legs and looks up at her, face bright and smiling and Clarke realizes she’s looking into an exact replica of Bellamy’s face, just younger and rounder and less worried.

“Gus!” she hears, and then she sees Bellamy step out on the porch.  “Augustus!”

“It’s okay!” he shouts back.  “It’s not a stranger, Momma’s home!”  And then the little boy, _Augustus_ , is grabbing her hand and dragging her toward the cabin.  Her feet feel like lead, but somehow she lets herself be pulled and soon enough she’s making her way up the porch steps and into the arms of her husband.

But.

No.

No, no.  This isn’t right.

This isn’t Bellamy, this isn’t—

“I missed you,” he mumbles into her hair, and it sounds like Bellamy.  He pulls back, runs a hand through her hair, kisses her.

But.

But, it doesn’t feel like Bellamy.  It doesn’t taste like him.

It’s wrong.  It’s so, so wrong.  It’s—

“How was Flokru?Luna give you any shit about trade agreements?”

“What?  I—no, no.  Bell—”

He must notice the confusion on her face, misread the fear.  “Hey, what’s wrong?  What happened?”

“Nothing, I—”

“Momma, come inside!” Gus exclaims, his childish exuberance nearly squelching the fear in her gut.

This is her son.  This is _their—_

No. 

_No._

They don’t have a son, not yet, they don’t—

“I wanna show you the picture I drew today!”

But he looks just like them.  More so Bellamy, really, he’s the spitting image, but still, Clarke can see small similarities to herself.  The slope of Gus’s nose, the tiny ears, the small mole above his upper lip, just like her own.

Again, she lets him pull her along, into this house, their cabin, and over to a battered but cozy couch.  He pulls a sheet of paper off the table in front of the couch and hands it to her.

“Look Momma, it’s us!  Me and you and Daddy!”

The drawing is beautiful, far beyond anything any other five year old she's ever met could produce.  Fully drawn figures of herself and Bellamy standing together and holding hands, and a smaller figure that must be Gus sitting proudly on Bellamy’s shoulders. 

She covers her mouth with her hand, already feeling the tears sting her eyes.  This is everything she could ever want.  A small quiet home in the forest with Bellamy and their child. 

This is…this is…

This isn’t real.

Her breathing grows quick and sharp and she turns to the man in the doorway, this Bellamy that’s not really Bellamy.

“What is this?” she breathes, low and venomous.

“What?” her not-husband asks.

“Momma, what’s wrong?” her not-son asks.

“What the _hell_ is this?”

“Gus, go to your room,”  Bellamy says.

“But Daddy—”

“Go on,” he says, and Gus listens, grabbing the remainder of his blank paper and his colored pencils.  When he’s gone, the thing, the _code_ , Clarke reminds herself, turns back to her.  Because she knows, Bellamy is not in the City of Light with her.  Bellamy is in the throne room in Polis, keeping her safe.  _Her_ Bellamy is there.  _This_ Bellamy…  “Clarke,” it says.

“You’re not my husband,” she says, quiet and deathly calm as she rises from the couch.

He looks at her, hurt spread across his features.  “Princess,”

“Don’t!  Don’t you dare!  You aren’t him!  This isn’t real!” she cries.  “This isn’t real!”

—-

Clarke’s body shakes, eyes shut tight, tears leaking from the corners.  Bellamy can barely stop himself from ripping the IV from her arm and speaking the phrase to dislodge the flame from the base of her skull.

“Don’t!  Don’t you dare!  You aren’t him!  This isn’t real!” she cries.  “This isn’t real!”

“What the hell is happening in there?” he asks, eyes pleading with Abby.

“ALIE, she’s…she’s showing her what she wants most, trying to get her to stay in the city.”  Abby swallows, clears her throat.  “But Clarke is stronger than that.  It sounds like she’s fighting whatever she’s seeing.”

Bellamy turns back to his wife.  Her eyes are still squeezed shut, but the tears have subsided.  He kisses the top of her hand.

“You’re okay, Clarke.  I’m right here.”

—-

“Clarke,” not-Bellamy says.  “What happened while you were gone?”

“Stop playing games, ALIE.”

He furrows his brow.  “Who is ALIE?  Clarke—”

“Stop wearing his face.  This is your world, so come on.  Show yourself.  Your _real_ self.”

There’s a knock at the front door and not-Bellamy goes to answer it.  Their friends start piling in, one after another, carrying covered dishes and laughing.  Miller and Bryan, Harper and Monty, Jasper, Lincoln, Octavia, Gina.  And then, Raven.

_Raven._

Raven is on the outside, in Arkadia, fighting ALIE’s code with one of her own.

“Raven,” she whispers, hoping it registers somewhere in whatever string of 1s and 0s her friend is wading through back at camp.  “Get me out of this.”

“You guys seriously couldn’t pick a closer spot to Arkadia to build your secluded little bungalow?” not-Octavia grumbles.

“O, we live a mile outside the gates, and you have a horse!”

“It’s still a mile,” she mutters.

“We brought food!” not-Jasper exclaims.  “To welcome Mom home!”

“Raven please,” Clarke whispers.  “If you can read what I’m saying, _please.”_

From the corner of her eye, Clarke can see a door appear on the far wall of the kitchen, with a big, black Raven etched into the wood.

She makes a dash for the door.

“Clarke!” not-Bellamy yells.

“Clarke!” the rest of her not-friends echo, eerily in sync.

She ignores them all.  She reaches the door, hand on the knob—

“Momma?”  The small voice gives her pause.

_No,_ she thinks.  _He’s not real._

“Momma, where are you going?”

She shakes her head, brushes away the tears in her eyes.

“Momma, don’t you wanna stay here with me?”

She puts all of her weight into shoving the door open, and when she’s on the other side, she slams it shut, leaving that fake world behind.

When she turns around, she’s in a lab, white and sterile.  There’s a woman with thick black glasses sitting at a microscope, smiling.

“Clarke,” she says.  “Finally.”

“ALIE?”

The woman laughs.  “No, no.  I’m Becca.  Although I can see where you might get us confused.  ALIE was created in my likeness.”

“Becca Pramheda,” Clarke whispers.

The woman laughs again.  “Just Becca is fine.  Raven and I have been waiting for you.  She’s been working from the outside to keep ALIE out of this room, and I’ve been working from here.”

“What is this room?”

“The center of the program.  The only piece of the City of Light that holds the kill switch.  I wrote it in myself once I figured out long ago what ALIE was planning.  And then I wrote myself into the program as well, to help act as a guardian until someone else came along.  Until you,” she smiles.

“Why me?”

“Because you took the flame, Clarke.  It’s merged with your mind, but your mind is in control now.  Once you realized everything you were seeing was false.  Once you came through that door,” she says, pointing to the door Raven created.  “And only the mind in control can pull the kill switch.”

Becca leads her to the switch and Clarke settles her hand upon the smooth, cool lever.

Another lever.

Why is it always a lever?

“I wouldn’t pull that if I were you,” a voice says, and Clarke turns to see Becca’s doppelgänger standing before her in a red dress.

“ALIE.”

“You did ask to see my true form,” she smiles.  “Now, if you pull that switch, you’ll be killing everyone.”

Clarke shakes her head.  “You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.  The nuclear power plants that weren’t destroyed years ago by the bombs are beginning to melt down.  Dozens are at risk around the world, several already burning.  Global radiation levels are rising and within six months, the Earth with be uninhabitable, even for those of you born in space.  The City of Light is the only option.  It’s the only thing that can save you all.”

“So what, our bodies burn, but our subconscious lives here?  Here isn’t real, ALIE.  That wasn’t my husband, that wasn’t my—” her breath hitches, because that little boy, Augustus, the way he looked at her… the love in his eyes, the idea that she could take all the bad she’s done in this life and purge it and create something so wholly good…

“Clarke, she’s stalling,” Becca says.  “There’s no radiation coming, there’s no burning power plants.  There’s an update being installed and once it’s complete, she’ll delete the kill switch.  If you want that life, that little boy, pull the switch and go home and create it.”

“But what if—”

“They can’t hold them off much longer, Clarke.  Your friends are fighting, but the chipped are winning.  Pull the switch and save them!”

“The reactors will kill them all!” ALIE yells. 

“There are no reactors!” Becca yells back.  “Pull the switch!”

Clarke doesn’t know which one to believe.  But she does know that if ALIE is telling the truth, they’ll figure a way out of it.

Her and Bellamy, together.

She pulls the kill switch, and everything goes dark.

—-

She wakes up in the throne, slightly slumped and a little bleary. 

Bellamy isn’t holding her hand.

Bellamy isn’t by her side.

Bellamy—

Bellamy pushes a clearly shaken Kane off and sits up, rubbing at his very abused neck.  First cuts, and now, Clarke can see, bruises.  She’s gonna have to spend a week patching him back together.  He sees her alert and conscious, and is at her side in an instant.

“We need to remove the flame,” she says, and Bellamy uses one hand to pull her hair from the back of her neck.  When Clarke utters the passphrase, he uses the other to remove the little square device.  Clarke stands on shaky legs, but Bellamy is there to steady her.  He hands her the flame, and she stares at it for a moment.

So many commanders.

So many years of grounder traditions.

So much mayhem and madness caused by such a tiny little thing.

She drops it on the floor and crushes it beneath the heal of her boot.

“We don’t need it anymore.”  And then she leans up, covering Bellamy’s mouth with her own, kissing and kissing and kissing until she can’t breathe.

This is right.

This is Bellamy.

This is _her_ Bellamy.

When the kiss ends, she stays in his embrace, clutching him to her as he does the same.  The back of his shirt bunches in her fists as she looks around the room and sees so many others sharing similar moments.

Murphy’s got his arms around a grounder girl Clarke assumes must be the girlfriend he mentioned earlier.  Her mother is on the ground, comforting Kane, who’s shaking and can’t seem to pull his head from his hands.  Lincoln and Octavia are out on the balcony, surveying those down below, their hands brushing every few moments just as a reminder.  Just a hey, I’m still here and so are you.

Pike is nowhere to be found, and Clarke couldn’t care less.

She sighs, deep and heavy, and buries her nose in Bellamy’s neck.  “We saved the world,” she whispers.  “Can we go home now?”

Bellamy smiles softly, kisses her forehead.  “Yeah, princess.  We can go home.”

—-

When they finally, finally after two days, make it home, they lock the door to their room and don’t plan on coming out for weeks.

They take off their jackets and boots and collapse on the bed, rolling around a bit until they’re comfortable.  They end up on their sides, facing each other and Clarke can’t help but bring up a hand and trace the lines and curves of his face.  The full lips and the slant of his nose.  The dark eyes, the constellation of freckles that smatter everything.  She kisses him, warm and sound, and he groans, rolling onto his back and pulling her with him.

His hands roam under her shirt and up and down her back, the rough callouses feeling incredible against her smooth skin.  She breaks the kiss long enough to sit up and remove her shirt.  She leans back down to kiss him again and his hands move for the clasp of her bra, opening it with ease and pulling at the straps.  Clarke shivers as he starts to remove the garment, his fingers ghosting along her arms.  She sits back up to fully remove the bra and her hands rub softly at his shirt covered chest.

“Off?” she say quietly, and he nods, never breaking eye contact.  Bellamy sits up and lifts his arms, allowing Clarke to remove his shirt, and then they’re kissing again, falling back down amongst the blankets and pillows, chest to chest, skin against skin, warm and alive.  It’s the best thing she’s felt in weeks.

She kisses him everywhere.  Lips, cheeks, temples, forehead, eyelids, before trailing down to his ear and nibbling at the lobe.  Bellamy lets out a hiss, and his hands tighten on her hips.  Clarke smirks, and moves further down his neck, kissing every bruise left there while she was in the City of Light and he was fighting to keep her safe.  She spends extra time on the small cuts ALIE made against his throat, kissing and sucking and soothing.

His hands move from her hips to her lower back, where one rubs back and forth and the other slides up into her hair, tugging softly.  She moves back up to his mouth, kissing him soundly.  Bellamy moves to roll them back over, but Clarke stops him, wanting to remain on top.

“No,” she says, hand moving down across his chest and toward the button on his pants.  She flicks it open and pulls down the zipper before reaching in and wrapping her fingers around his length.  Bellamy groans and the sound makes her body flush in a rush of heat. 

“I wanted to take care of you,” he breathes, reaching for her own jeans button.  She lightly bats his hand away, grabbing it with her free hand and pinning it up near his head.  She kisses him quick before her other hand begins to move around him, up and down at a torturous pace.

“I believe,” she whispers, breath hot against his ear, “that you promised to give me whatever I wanted.”  He groans again as she continues to stroke him.  “Will you still give me whatever I want, Bellamy?”

“Fuck, Clarke, anything.”

“This is what I want,” she says, her fingers squeezing just a little tighter as she picks up her pace.  “I want to touch you.  I want to feel you everywhere.” 

His fingers tangle in her hair once again and he drags her mouth down to meet his in a searing kiss.  She speeds up a little more in her movement, getting him closer and closer.  “I’m not gonna last if you keep that up,” he growls.

She trails her lips from his, over his cheek and down to his ear.  “Then don’t.  Come, Bellamy.” she whispers, stroking him once more.  “We have all night and all week and all month and all year.  We have the rest of forever.” 

He swallow hard, adam’s apple bobbing, and she swears she sees his eyes roll back from her words, from her touch.  There’s so much love and trust  and familiarity between them.  So much relief, and hope, and promise.  She moves back to his mouth, lips barely brushing, just a whisper of a kiss, and it’s his undoing.  He falls apart in her arms, coming hard against her.  She releases his hand she’s been pinning and uses his discarded shirt to clean them up.  He lays there, boneless and panting, and she smiles before running her fingers through his hair, brushing back the sweaty strands around his forehead.

“I love you,” she whispers, eyes never straying from his.  “I love you so much, Bellamy.”

He surges up to kiss her, fast and hard, before finally rolling her back under him and moving to unbutton her jeans.  “I love you too,” he murmurs as his lips begin a blazing trail down her body.

—-

They lay together after, sweaty and exhausted and happy.  So, so, happy.  Bellamy’s face is tucked against her neck, his body still pressing her into the mattress, and she moves her fingertips slowly up and down his spine before settling at his nape, tangling in the curls there.  He kisses her neck gently, nosing at the smooth skin.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?” he asks quietly, arms tightening around her middle.

She smirks, laughing quietly.  “I think you know what just happened.”

“No,” he shakes his head.  “I mean, in Polis.  In the City of Light.”

Her fingers still for a moment before regaining their languid pace. 

She wants to tell him.

Raven already knows everything that happened.  She read the code as it was happening, and already confirmed that ALIE had indeed been lying, and that there weren’t any reactors left anywhere.  It was just a stall to keep Clarke from pulling the kill switch.

Bellamy already knows about that part too, but the rest…he deserves to know.

About the cabin.

About their _son_.

“There was one point, before the grounders started getting through our barricade.  I was holding your hand, and you were shaking, crying.  You were yelling that it wasn’t real, and your mom said ALIE was showing you what you wanted, to get you to stay.”

Clarke swallows and nods.  “She was.  She did.  I—” she takes a deep breath.  “There was a cabin, in an open field, with a big front porch, and it was just a little ways outside of Arkadia.  It was ours, Bellamy, just you and me, and our five year old son.”  It takes a few moments to process her words, but once what she said sets in, his head shoots up and he looks down at her, eyes wide with wonder and question.

“There it is,” she whispers, smiling.

“We had a…you want…?”

“Someday,” she says.  “Yeah.  I really, really do.  I want a little you or a little me.”  She huffs a laugh.  “Preferably a little you.  My mom says I could be horrible as a child.”

“You?” he questions, eyebrow quirked.  “No, never.”  She laughs again, and he kisses her.  “You want me to give you a baby, Clarke?” he asks, voice husky, and she feels him begin to stir against her.

“I want us to give one to each other,” she answers.  “As long as it’s what you want too.”

“I do,” he says, echoing her sentiments. “I really, really do.”

—-

Coming home is always Clarke’s favorite part of the day, whether it be from her eight hour shift in Arkadia’s medbay, or from her two week journey to one of the other clans for some sort of trade negotiation.

She says goodbye to Octavia and Lincoln just outside of Arkadia’s gates before trekking the quarter mile to their cabin.  Unfortunately this time, it was a three week trip all the way to the Delphi clan, far up in the North East, and Bellamy had had to stay home to work guard shifts after half of the men had come down with chicken pox and were being quarantined until their blisters began to clear up.

She knows he has to be exhausted, pulling double duty at work, and looking after the delinquents, because there will never be a day, no matter how old any of them get, that she and Bellamy don’t look after the delinquents.  It doesn’t help that now, seven years after landing on the ground, some of the original 100 have their own little delinquents to look after.

“Momma!  Momma, momma!”  She hears the little voice before she sees him race out the front door, and her eyes prick with tears.  This is why coming home is her favorite part of the day.  He must have been watching out the window, waiting for her to be close enough to come running.  Clarke drops her pack and falls to her knees just as the little body collides with hers.  She wraps him up tightly in her arms, breathing in his little boy smells, which are different everyday depending on whatever mischief he’s gotten himself into.  Bellamy must have just given him a bath because he’s wearing his pajamas and he smells fresh and clean, like the soap Monty makes for them.

“Hi bean,” she whispers kissing his head and rocking him gently.  “I missed you so, so much.”

“I missed you more, Momma!”

“Next time Gus, you and Daddy are gonna come with me, okay?”

“Okay,” he smiles.  “Can we go inside now?  Daddy made dinner and I’m starving!”

“You’re starving?” she laughs, standing up before reaching down and lifting him into her arms.  His little legs wrap around her waist and she hikes him up higher after grabbing her pack. “What kind of trouble were you making today that’s got you so hungry?”

“I didn't get in trouble!” he giggles.  “Uncle Miller took me and Eli swimming at the lake and then we made cheese with Uncle Monty and Aunt Harper.”

“Well then, after a day like that, you _must_ be starving.” she says, rubbing her nose against his.  He giggles again, and she kisses his cheek, marveling at how happy her son gets to be. 

The earth is much safer, the clans are untied and aligned under Prince Roan, of all people, and Arkadia is flourishing inside and outside of its gates.  Clarke and Bellamy aren’t the only ones to build a cabin.  She passes Harper and Monty’s as well as Miller and Bryan’s on her way home.

She trudges up the porch steps, Gus still in her arms, and Bellamy is there in the open doorway, arms crossed against his chest, smile playing at his lips.  “Hi,” she says, leaning up to kiss him.

“Hi,” he replies against her lips, before kissing back, lingering for as long as possible.

“Eww!” Gus laughs.

“Eww?” Bellamy asks, pulling Gus from Clarke’s arms.  “ _Eww?_ ” he repeats, planting sloppy kisses on his son’s cheeks.  Gus laughs and laughs and Clarke laughs too.  Bellamy puts Gus down and ruffles his hair.  “Go wash your hands, bud.  Dinner’s done.”

“Okay!” he yells and takes off down the hallway toward the bathroom.

Clarke closes the door behind them as they enter the cabin and then she’s practically collapsing into Bellamy’s arms, so, so tired from her trip.

He kisses her temple, squeezes her, bringing her even closer.  “Missed you.”

“Missed you more,” she says.  “Both of you.”

“Everything go okay?”

She nods.  “Yeah.  I’m just glad to be home.”

—-

After dinner, they put Gus to bed, both of them stretched out on his tiny mattress while he lays between them and Bellamy reads him stories.  He passes out halfway through the second one and quietly, they slip from the bed.

Clarke pulls his blankets up and kisses his forehead, while Bellamy turns on the small nightlight Raven made.  “Goodnight little bean,” she whispers.  “I love you to pieces.”

Bellamy says his own goodnight to Gus and then they retreat to their room, falling into bed and each other.

He cards his fingers through her hair as her head rests on his chest, and it’s the best, most relaxing feeling she could ask for after three weeks away.  “Next time we all go together,” she mumbles, repeating her words from earlier.  “I hate being away from the two of you for so long.”

“It’s not my favorite either.”

She sighs, burrowing further into his warmth.  “Did you ever think this could be our life?  This peace and quiet and comfort?”

“Mhmm.” he nods.  “Because it’s everything you wanted, and you, princess, always get what you want.”

She pinches his side and he yelps before rolling her underneath him.  He kisses her neck, up, up, up, to her ear and breathes softly.  “It’s our life Clarke, and it’s a damn good one.”

“Yeah,” she says, arms banding tightly around him.  “It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading and sticking with me! I'm not planning on adding season 4 to this alternate canon because I have some other ideas for alternate canon season 5 spec type fic things, but I may come back to this universe at some point with some timestamp pieces.
> 
> I have a few ideas for some modern AUs too, so stay tuned.
> 
> Thank you again, and leave a comment or a kudo if you wish! I love hearing from you guys!


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